Photon Aided and Inhibited Tunneling of Photons

TL;DR

This paper investigates quantum tunneling of photons between coupled structures, revealing how photon presence, bosonic properties, and squeezed fields can enhance or inhibit tunneling probabilities.

Contribution

It introduces the concepts of photon aided and inhibited tunneling, analyzing the effects of photon number, bosonic nature, and squeezed fields on tunneling behavior.

Findings

Photon presence can enhance or inhibit tunneling.

Bosonic nature of photons increases tunneling probability.

Squeezed fields significantly alter tunneling characteristics.

Abstract

In the light of the interest in the transport of single photons in arrays of waveguides, fiber couplers, photonic crystals, etc., we consider the quantum mechanical process of the tunneling of photons through evanescently or otherwise coupled structures. We specifically examine the issue of tunneling between two structures when one structure already contains few photons. We demonstrate the possibility of both photon aided and inhibited tunneling of photons. The Bosonic nature of photons enhances the tunneling probability. We also show how the multiphoton tunneling probability can be either enhanced or inhibited due to the presence of photons. We find similar results for the higher order tunneling. Finally, we show that the presence of a squeezed field changes the nature of tunneling considerably.