Coherent superposition states of light and their interference in three-photon absorption process

Abstract

For the process of three-photon absorption in the case of a cubic parametric perturbation a possibility to obtain quantum superposition states of three coherent components is shown. The one-photon and two-photon absorption processes are shown to destroy the interference between the state components: the quantum superposition state decays into the classical mixture of its components. It is shown that the interference between different three-component coherent superposition states formed in the system can, depending on the initial state of the field, result in almost full localization of the optical system in a two-component state, or in destruction of the interference between different coherent components. The Wigner functions and quantum entropy of the system are calculated for a variety of initial states.     

Optical state measurement with a two-component probe

Abstract

A state of light which is a superposition of the vacuum and the one-photon number state is the simplest state containing phase information. Recently we have shown how a field in such a state might be generated and here we explore its usefulness as a probe for measuring unknown states of light. We find that this probe can be used reasonably simply both to determine completely some pure states of light and to measure the diagonal and nearest off-diagonal elements of the density matrix in the number state basis and hence to obtain the mean sine and cosine of the phase of an unknown mixed state. We suggest further how a field in a superposition of the vacuum and the two-photon number state might be generated and how this can be used as a probe, both to measure the off-diagonal matrix elements second nearest to the diagonal of a mixed state density matrix and to measure the variance of the cosine and the sine of the phase. We also examine the experimentally more likely case where the probe fields are in mixed states and show how the same information about the unknown state can still be retrieved.     

Effect of quantum interference on a three-level atom driven by two laser fields

Abstract

We study the effect of quantum interference on the population distribution and absorptive properties of a V-type three-level atom driven by two lasers of unequal intensities and different angular frequencies. Three coupling configurations of the lasers to the atom are analysed: (a) both lasers coupled to the same atomic transition, (b) each laser coupled to different atomic transition and (c) each laser coupled to both atomic transitions. Dressed states for the three coupling configurations are identified, and the population distribution and absorptive properties of the weaker field are interpreted in terms of transition dipole moments and transition frequencies among these dressed states. In particular, we find that in the first two cases there is no population inversion between the bare atomic states, but the population can be trapped in a superposition of the dressed states induced by quantum interference and the stronger field. We show, that the trapping of the population, which results from the cancellation of transition dipole moments, does not prevent the weaker field to be coupled to the cancelled (dark) transitions. As a result, the weaker field can be strongly amplified on transparent transitions. In the case of each laser coupled to both atomic transitions the population can be trapped in a linear superposition of the excited bare atomic states leaving the ground state unpopulated in the steady state. Moreover, we find that the absorption rate of the weaker field depends on the detuning of the strong field from the atomic resonances and the splitting between the atomic excited states. When the strong field is resonant to one of the atomic transitions a quasi-trapping effect appears in one of the dressed states. In the quasi-trapping situation all the transition dipole moments are different from zero, which allows the weaker field to be amplified on the inverted transitions. When the strong field is tuned halfway between the atomic excited states, the population is completely trapped in one of the dressed states and no amplification is found for the weaker field.     

Terahertz ionization of highly charged quantum posts in a perforated electron gas

"Quantum posts" are roughly cylindrical semiconductor nanostructures that are embedded in an energetically shallower "matrix" quantum well of comparable thickness. We report measurements of voltage-controlled charging and terahertz absorption of 30 nm thick InGaAs quantum wells and posts. Under flat-band (zero-electric field) conditions, the quantum posts each contain approximately six electrons, and an additional ~2.4 × 10(11) cm(-2) electrons populate the quantum well matrix. In this regime, absorption spectra show peaks at 3.5 and 4.8 THz (14 and 19 meV) whose relative amplitude depends strongly on temperature. These peaks are assigned to intersubband transitions of electrons in the quantum well matrix. A third, broader feature has a temperature-independent amplitude and is assigned to an absorption involving quantum posts. Eight-band k·p calculations incorporating the effects of strain and Coulomb repulsion predict that the electrons in the posts strongly repel the electrons in the quantum well matrix, "perforating" the electron gas. The strongest calculated transition, which has a frequency close to the center of the quantum post related absorption at 5 THz (20 meV), is an ionizing transition from a filled state to a quasi-bound state that can easily scatter to empty states in the quantum well matrix.     

Optical qubit generation by state truncation using an experimentally feasible scheme

Generation of arbitrary superposition of vacuum and one-photon states using a quantum scissors device (QSD) is studied. The device allows the preparation of states by truncating an input coherent light. Optimum values of the intensity of the coherent light for the generation of any desired state using the experimentally feasible QSD scheme are found.     

Enhancement of discord and entanglement with detuning for two coupled quantum dots in a driven cavity

We study the quantum discord for a system of two identical coupled quantum dots interacting with quantized cavity field in the presence of cavity as well as dot decay and detuning. The cavity is externally driven by a coherent light. These results are compared with the entanglement of the quantum dots in various parameter regimes in which system may or may not show bistability. We show that the discord in the steady state is nonzero for any nonzero cavity field amplitude. The system has higher discord in the upper branch of the bistability curve where the entanglement is zero. We also find many other interesting results including high discord and entanglement in the presence of detuning, a phenomenon which we further examine by approximating the density matrix in the appropriate limit.     

Measuring quantum correlations using lossy photon-number-resolving detectors with saturation

The variance of difference of photocounts (VDPs) is an established measure of quantum correlations for quantum states of light. It enables us to discriminate between the classical correlation of a two-mode coherent state and the quantum correlation of a twin-beam state. We study the effect of loss and saturation of the photon number-resolving detector on the measurement of the VDPs. An analytic function is derived for this variance, both for the coherent and the twin-beam states. It is found that the VDPs is no longer a reliable entanglement measure in the nonlinear regime of the detector response but it remains useful in some range of values of average photon numbers of the incident light. We also quantify the linear regime of the detector with saturation which will be useful for calibration of the detector quantum efficiency.     

Modification of Kerr nonlinearity in a four-level quantum system near a plasmonic nanostructure

We present a theoretical study for the Kerr nonlinearity of a four-level double-V-type quantum system near a two-dimensional array of metal-coated dielectric nanospheres. In the quantum system under study one V-type transition is influenced by the interaction with surface plasmons while the other V-type transition interacts with free-space vacuum. The quantum system interacts with a linearly polarized weak laser field that couples the lowest state with the upper states in the free-space transitions. We show that the Kerr nonlinearity is strongly influenced by the presence of the plasmonic nanostructure and is particularly sensitive to the distance between the quantum system and the plasmonic nanostructure.     

Retrodictive quantum optical state engineering

Abstract

Although it has been known for some time that quantum mechanics can be formulated in a way that treats prediction and retrodiction on an equal footing, most attention in engineering quantum states has been devoted to predictive states, that is, states associated with a preparation event. Retrodictive states, which are associated with a measurement event and propagate backwards in time, are also useful, however. In this paper it is shown how any retrodictive state of light that can be written to a good approximation as a finite superposition of photon number states can be generated by an optical multiport device. The composition of the state is adjusted by controlling predictive coherent input states. It is shown how the probability of successful state generation can be optimized by adjusting the multiport device and also a versatile configuration that is useful for generating a range of states is examined.     

Highly efficient multiple exciton generation in colloidal PbSe and PbS quantum dots

We report ultra-efficient multiple exciton generation (MEG) for single photon absorption in colloidal PbSe and PbS quantum dots (QDs). We employ transient absorption spectroscopy and present measurement data acquired for both intraband as well as interband probe energies. Quantum yields of 300% indicate the creation, on average, of three excitons per absorbed photon for PbSe QDs at photon energies that are four times the QD energy gap. Results indicate that the threshold photon energy for MEG in QDs is twice the lowest exciton absorption energy. We find that the biexciton effect, which shifts the transition energy for absorption of a second photon, influences the early time transient absorption data and may contribute to a modulation observed when probing near the lowest interband transition. We present experimental and theoretical values of the size-dependent interband transition energies for PbSe QDs. We present experimental and theoretical values of the size-dependent interband transition energies for PbSe QDs, and we also introduce a new model for MEG based on the coherent superposition of multiple excitonic states.     

All-optical switching based on the electromagnetically induced transparency effect of an active photonic crystal microcavity

We report a new all-optical switching in a two-dimensional photonic crystal microcavity made of semiconductor multiple quantum wells and realized based on the electromagnetically induced transparency effect with exciton and two-exciton energy levels. We use the quantum coherence effects to achieve small absorption of the probe field, and the absorption of the probe field can be adjusted by controlling the pump field and decay rate. We turn the control field into pulses of light field so that we can regulate the efficiency of the switch. Through selecting the appropriate control light field intensity, we can obtain a switching efficiency of 85% and a switching time is 10 ps. This result can be used for the development of new types of nanoelectronic devices for realizing the switching process.     

Non-classical Properties of Two-mode SU(1, 1) Coherent States

Abstract

We examine the non-classical properties of two-mode coherent states based on different unitary irreducible representations of SU(1, 1). Such states are generated by the action of the two-mode squeezing operator on initial states of the field containing arbitrary numbers of photons in each of the two modes. If the initial state of the field is a two-mode vacuum state, the final state is of course the two-mode squeezed vacuum. An initial occupation generalizes the idea of a squeezed vacuum to the SU(1, 1) coherent states. We show that fields in such states have remarkable quantum properties such as sub-Poissonian statistics, violations of the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality, strong correlations in the photon number fluctuations and squeezing. Using information theory formalism, we show that these coherent states are less correlated than the usual two-mode squeezed vacuum. Moreover, we show that an initial coherent amplitude contribution, in a large amplitude limit, can result in the reduction of correlations between modes.     

Plasmonic electromagnetically induced transparency in metallic nanoparticle-quantum dot hybrid systems

We study the variation of the energy absorption rate in a hybrid semiconductor quantum dot-metallic nanoparticle system doped in a photonic crystal. The quantum dot is taken as a three-level V-configuration system and is driven by two applied fields (probe and control). We consider that one of the excitonic resonance frequencies is near to the plasmonic resonance frequency of the metallic nanoparticle, and is driven by the probe field. The other excitonic resonance frequency is far from both the plasmonic resonance frequency and the photonic bandgap edge, and is driven by the control field. In the absence of the photonic crystal we found that the system supports three excitonic-induced transparencies in the energy absorption spectrum of the metallic nanoparticle. We show that the photonic crystal allows us to manipulate the frequencies of such excitonic-induced transparencies and the amplitude of the energy absorption rate.     

Transparency and parametric generation in a four-level system † Reviewing of this paper was handled by a member of the Editorial Board.

We analyse two distinct nonlinear phenomena in a four-level quantum system having a tripod configuration. First, we show that the system can become transparent at two different frequencies of a probe laser field. The potential for parametric generation in this medium is also investigated. We show that, if the system is prepared in a coherent superposition of two or three of the lower levels, one or two new fields can be generated.     

Creating quantum entanglement between multi-atom Dicke states and two cavity modes

We present a scheme to create quantum entanglement between multi-atom Dicke states and two cavity modes by passing N three-level atoms in Λ configuration through a resonant two-mode cavity one by one. We further show that such a scheme can be used to generate arbitrary two-mode N-photon entangled states, arbitrary superposition of Dicke states, and a maximal entangled state of Dicke states. These states may find applications in the demonstration of quantum non-locality, high-precision spectroscopy and quantum information processing.     

Interaction of Superpositions of Coherent States of Light with Two-level Atoms

Abstract

We investigate some of the basic features of the interaction of superpositions of coherent states of light with two-level atoms in the framework of the Jaynes-Cummings model. We compare the behaviour of the system in the case of having a coherent superposition state and a statistical mixture of coherent states as an initial field. We investigate the collapses and revivals of the atomic inversion by studying the evolution of the Q function of the cavity field. We also establish the connection between the purity of the field and the collapses and revivals of the atomic inversion.     

Quantum phase measurements and non-classical polarization states of light

Abstract

In our paper we consider the non-classical behaviour of both the Hermitian (observable) Stokes parameters of light and the phase difference of two modes that describe the quantum polarization states of optical field. To characterize the degree of polarization of light we introduce a new quantity taking into account the quantum properties of different quantum states of two orthogonally polarized modes. The problem of determination of the phase difference in two modes of optical field for the quantum polarization states of light is discussed. To describe in general such a quantum field we introduce two pairs of the phase operators: the phase angles for the Stokes parameters of light in a three-dimensional picture of the Poincaré sphere. We also consider a special type of the eight-port polarization interferometer (polarimeter) for simultaneous homodyne detection of both the Stokes parameters of light and the polarization phase operators and their fluctuations as well. Using an anisotropic (spatioperiodic) Kerr-like nonlinear medium associated with the polarization interferometer we could generate and also observe the polarization-squeezed phase states of light. The fluctuations in the phase difference between two orthogonally polarized modes for these non-classical states are less than the fluctuations for light in coherent state.     

Production of Macroscopic Schrödinger Cat States from Weak Quantized Cavity Fields Interacting with Atoms Driven by Classical Fields

Abstract

We show that macroscopic superposition (Schrödinger cat) states of a quantized single-mode cavity field can be produced via the interaction of this field with a two-level atom which is driven by a classical field even for small initial intensities of the quantized cavity mode. We show that with a properly chosen driving field an almost pure superposition state with arbitrary amplitudes and phases of component states can be produced.     

Protecting free-entangled and bound-entangled states in a two-qutrit system under decoherence using weak measurements

We demonstrate a method to protect free-entangled and bound-entangled states in a two-qutrit system under amplitude damping and the generalized amplitude damping channels based on measurement reversal from weak measurement. We find that this scheme can circumvent the distillability sudden death by changing weak measurement strength and the free-entangled and bound-entangled states can be robust against decoherence in amplitude damping case. Moreover, the negativity and realignment negativity almost tend to a constant respectively in spite of sufficiently strong decoherence when weak measurement strength is strong. We also show that under the generalized amplitude damping, the life of free-entangled and bound-entangled states can be prolonged using weak measurements in certain conditions.