Single-photon non-linear optics with a quantum dot in a waveguide

Strong non-linear interactions between photons enable logic operations for both classical and quantum-information technology. Unfortunately, non-linear interactions are usually feeble and therefore all-optical logic gates tend to be inefficient. A quantum emitter deterministically coupled to a propa...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Javadi, A., Söllner, I., Arcari, M., Hansen, S. Lindskov, Midolo, L., Mahmoodian, S., Kiršanskė, G, Pregnolato, T., Lee, E. H., Song, J. D., Stobbe, S., Lodahl, P.
Format: Online
Language:English
Published: Nature Pub. Group 2015
Online Access:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4639909/
Description
Summary:Strong non-linear interactions between photons enable logic operations for both classical and quantum-information technology. Unfortunately, non-linear interactions are usually feeble and therefore all-optical logic gates tend to be inefficient. A quantum emitter deterministically coupled to a propagating mode fundamentally changes the situation, since each photon inevitably interacts with the emitter, and highly correlated many-photon states may be created. Here we show that a single quantum dot in a photonic-crystal waveguide can be used as a giant non-linearity sensitive at the single-photon level. The non-linear response is revealed from the intensity and quantum statistics of the scattered photons, and contains contributions from an entangled photon–photon bound state. The quantum non-linearity will find immediate applications for deterministic Bell-state measurements and single-photon transistors and paves the way to scalable waveguide-based photonic quantum-computing architectures.