Single photons from dissipation in coupled cavities

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel single photon source using coupled optical cavities with dissipation, enabling sub-Poissonian light generation even with weak nonlinearity, suitable for pulsed single-photon emission.

Contribution

It presents a new method for generating single photons via dissipative coupling in weakly nonlinear cavities, expanding possibilities for quantum light sources.

Findings

Sub-Poissonian light achieved with weak nonlinearity

Single-photon emission compatible with pulsed excitation

Implementation feasible in photonic platforms

Abstract

We propose a single photon source based on a pair of weakly nonlinear optical cavities subject to a one-directional dissipative coupling. When both cavities are driven by mutually coherent fields, sub-poissonian light is generated in the target cavity even when the nonlinear energy per photon is much smaller than the dissipation rate. The sub-poissonian character of the field holds over a delay measured by the inverse photon lifetime, as in the conventional photon blockade, thus allowing single-photon emission under pulsed excitation. We discuss a possible implementation of the dissipative coupling relevant to photonic platforms.