Ultrafast modulation of vibrational polaritons for controlling the quantum field statistics at mid-infrared frequencies

Controlling the quantum field statistics of confined light is a long-standing goal in integrated photonics. We show that by coupling molecular vibrations with a confined mid-infrared cavity vacuum, the photocount and quadrature field statistics of the cavity field can be reversibly manipulated over sub-picosecond timescales. The mechanism involves changing the cavity resonance frequency through a modulation of the dielectric response of the cavity materials using femtosecond UV pulses. For a single anharmonic molecular vibration in an infrared cavity under ultrastrong coupling conditions, the pulsed modulation of the cavity frequency can adiabatically produce mid- infrared light that is simultaneously sub-Poissonian and quadrature squeezed, depending on the dipolar behavior of the vibrational mode. For a vibration-cavity system in strong coupling, non-adiabatic polariton excitations can be produced after the frequency modulation pulse is over, when the system is initially prepared in the lower polariton state. We propose design principles for the generation of mid-infrared quantum light by analyzing the dependence of the cavity field statistics on the shape of the electric dipole function of the molecule, the cavity detuning at the modulation peak and the anharmonicity of the Morse potential. Feasible experimental implementations of the modulation scheme are suggested. This work paves the way for the development of molecule-based mid-infrared quantum optical devices at room temperature.

Phase-sensitive seeded modulation instability in passive fiber resonators

Modulation instability is one of the most ubiquitous phenomena in physics. Here we investigate the phase-sensitive properties of modulation instability with harmonic seeding in passive fiber resonators. Theoretical investigations based on the Lugiato−Lefever equation with time dependent pump and a three-wave truncation show that the dynamics of the system is sensitive to the relative phase between input signal, idler, and pump waves. The modulation instability gain can even vanish for a peculiar value of the initial relative phase. An advanced multi-heterodyne measurement technique had been developed to record the real time evolution, round-trip to round-trip, of the power and phase of the output cavity field to confirm these theoretical predictions.

The Jaynes–Cummings model of a two-level atom in a single-mode para-Bose cavity field

The coherent states in the parity deformed analog of standard boson Glauber coherent states are generated, which admit a resolution of unity with a positive measure. The quantum-mechanical nature of the light field of these para-Bose states is studied, and it is found that para-Bose order plays an important role in the nonclassical behaviors including photon antibunching, sub-Poissonian statistics, signal-to-quantum noise ratio, quadrature squeezing effect, and multi-peaked number distribution. Furthermore, we consider the Jaynes-Cummings model of a two-level atom in a para-Bose cavity field with the initial states of the excited and Glauber coherent ones when the atom makes one-photon transitions, and obtain exact energy spectrum and eigenstates of the deformed model. Nonclassical properties of the time-evolved para-Bose atom-field states are exhibited through evaluating the fidelity, evolution of atomic inversion, level damping, and von Neumann entropy. It is shown that the evolution time and the para-Bose order control these properties.

Entropic analysis of optomechanical entanglement for a nanomechanical resonator coupled to an optical cavity field

We investigate entanglement dynamics for a nanomechanical resonator coupled to an optical cavity field through the analysis of the associated entanglement entropies. The effects of time variation of several parameters, such as the optical frequency and the coupling strength, on the evolution of entanglement entropies are analyzed. We consider three kinds of entanglement entropies as the measures of the entanglement of subsystems, which are the linear entropy, the von Neumann entropy, and the Rényi entropy. The analytic formulae of these entropies are derived in a rigorous way using wave functions of the system. In particular, we focus on time behaviors of entanglement entropies in the case where the optical frequency is modulated by a small oscillating factor. We show that the entanglement entropies emerge and increase as the coupling strength grows from zero. The entanglement entropies fluctuate depending on the adiabatic variation of the parameters and such fluctuations are significant especially in the strong coupling regime. Our research may deepen the understanding of the optomechanical entanglement, which is crucial in realizing hybrid quantum-information protocols in quantum computation, quantum networks, and other domains in quantum science.