Stopping waveguide photons with controllable atomic cavity

TL;DR

This paper proposes a quantum mechanical method to controllably stop and reflect waveguide photons using an atomic cavity formed by atomic mirrors with adjustable energy levels, advancing quantum information processing capabilities.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach to control waveguide photon transmission and reflection using atomic mirrors with tunable energy splitting, enabling photon stopping and retraveling.

Findings

Photon reflection/transmission controlled by atomic energy levels

Photon can be stopped in the atomic cavity

Feasibility discussed with current optical devices

Abstract

Slowing/stopping the light travelling in free space with electromagnetically induced transparency to im- plement the optical quantum information processings and store information has been paid much attention in recent years. For the waveguide photons, here, we propose an approach to stop them with a controllable atomic cavity generated by a pair of atomic mirrors; one of them reflects the photon completely and an- other one with the adjustable reflected/transmitted probability of the photons. Based on the full quantum mechanical theory in real space, we show that the reflected/transmitted probability of the waveguide photon with a fixed frequency can be controlled by adjusting the energy-splitting of the driven two-level atomic scatters (i.e., atomic mirrors). As a consequence, the photon can be controllably transmitted/reflected along the waveguide by the aside atomic mirrors with the adjustable atomic energy levels. Ideally, the photons could be stopped in the atomic cavity. This provides a novel mechanism to stop/retravel the waveguide photon in a controllable ways. The feasibility of the proposal with the current integrated optical devices is also discussed.