Quantum nonlinear optics with single photons enabled by strongly interacting atoms
Open accessAbstract
The realization of strong nonlinear interactions between individual light quanta (photons) is a long-standing goal in optical science and engineering, being of both fundamental and technological significance. In conventional optical materials, the nonlinearity at light powers corresponding to single photons is negligibly weak. Here we demonstrate a medium that is nonlinear at the level of individual quanta, exhibiting strong absorption of photon pairs while remaining transparent to single photons. The quantum nonlinearity is obtained by coherently coupling slowly propagating photons to strongly interacting atomic Rydberg states in a cold, dense atomic gas. Our approach paves the way for quantum-by-quantum control of light fields, including single-photon switching, all-optical deterministic quantum logic and the realization of strongly correlated many-body states of light.
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A closely related experiment has been explored: strong interactions between photons are obtained by coupling light to optically dressed atoms in a Rydberg-EIT configuration, and a synthetic magnetic field in a cylindrically symmetric geometry is obtained by using a twisted optical ring-cavity.
“A closely related idea has been experimentally explored in a recent experiment [152]: strong interactions between photons are obtained by coupling light to optically dressed atoms in a Rydberg-EIT configuration [31,153]; a synthetic magnetic field in a cylindrically symmetric geometry is obtained by using a twisted optical ring-cavity [154].”
From How to exploit driving and dissipation to stabilize and manipulate quantum many-body states (2025) · cites this paper as [31]
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How to exploit driving and dissipation to stabilize and manipulate quantum many-body states
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“…circuit-QED devices operating in the microwave range [7, 26] or optically dressed atomic gases in the so-called Rydberg-EIT confgurations [6, 27, 28]: such exceptional media are at the heart of the recent developments towards the realization of strongly interacting photon fluids that we are…”
- Authors
- Peyronel, T., Firstenberg, O., Liang, Q.-Y., Hofferberth, S., Gorshkov, A. V., Pohl, T., Lukin, M. D., & Vuletić, V.
- Affiliations
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (US)
- Harvard University (US)
- California Institute of Technology (US)
- Max Planck Society (DE)
- Corresponding author
- Lukin, Mikhail D.
- Vuletić, Vladan
- ORCID
- Venue
- Nature
- Published
- 2012-07-25
- Volume
- 488
- Issue
- 7409
- Pages
- 57-60
- ISSN
- 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
- 1476-4687
- OpenAlex
- W1973337266
- Cited by
- 844
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2026: 28 · 2025: 40 · 2024: 32 · 2023: 47 · 2022: 57 · 2021: 53 · 2020: 54 · 2019: 65 · 2018: 64 · 2017: 64 · 2016: 99 · 2015: 65 · 2014: 94 · 2013: 76 · 2012: 6
- FWCI
- 40.00
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- nrs.harvard.edu
- Licence
- Locations
- Nature (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- CaltechAUTHORS (California Institute of Technology) (submittedVersion)
- Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard (DASH) (Harvard University) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- DSpace@MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) (submittedVersion)
- Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (submittedVersion)
- MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics › Quantum optics and atomic interactions
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics › Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Quantum Information and Cryptography
- Keywords
- nonlinear quantum optics, single-photon switching, Rydberg atoms, strong light-matter interaction
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