Loss-enabled sub-Poissonian light generation in a bimodal nanocavity

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a method to generate strongly sub-Poissonian light using a quantum dot in a lossy bimodal cavity, where interference effects enable photon number filtering.

Contribution

It introduces a novel scheme for sub-Poissonian light generation leveraging cavity loss and interference, supported by numerical simulations and physical explanation.

Findings

Strong sub-Poissonian light achieved in a bimodal cavity system

Interference between transmitted coherent light and photon-induced tunneling is key

The effect depends critically on cavity loss, vanishing without it

Abstract

We propose an implementation of a source of strongly sub-Poissonian light in a system consisting of a quantum dot coupled to both modes of a lossy bimodal optical cavity. When one mode of the cavity is resonantly driven with coherent light, the system will act as an efficient photon number filter, and the transmitted light will have a strongly sub-Poissonian character. In addition to numerical simulations demonstrating this effect, we present a physical explanation of the underlying mechanism. In particular, we show that the effect results from an interference between the coherent light transmitted through the resonant cavity and the super-Poissonian light generated by photon-induced tunneling. Peculiarly, this effect vanishes in the absence of the cavity loss.