Strongly correlated photons on a chip

Abstract

Optical nonlinearities at the single-photon level are key ingredients for future photonic quantum technologies1. Prime candidates for the realization of the strong photon–photon interactions necessary for implementing quantum information processing tasks2, as well as for studying strongly correlated photons3,4,5,6 in an integrated photonic device setting, are quantum dots embedded in photonic-crystal nanocavities. Here, we report strong quantum correlations between photons on picosecond timescales. We observe (i) photon antibunching upon resonant excitation of the lowest-energy polariton state, proving that the first cavity photon blocks the subsequent injection events, and (ii) photon bunching when the laser field is in two-photon resonance with the polariton eigenstates of the second Jaynes–Cummings manifold7,8, demonstrating that two photons at this colour are more likely to be injected into the cavity jointly than they would otherwise. Together, these results demonstrate unprecedented strong single-photon nonlinearities, paving the way for the realization of a quantum optical Josephson interferometer9 or a single-photon transistor10. Researchers observe a continuous change in photon correlations from strong antibunching to bunching by tuning either the probe laser or the cavity mode frequency. These results, which demonstrate unprecedented strong single-photon nonlinearities in quantum dot cavity system, are explained by the photon blockade and tunnelling in the anharmonic Jaynes–Cummings model.