$n$-photon blockade with an $n$-photon parametric drive

TL;DR

This paper introduces a method to achieve n-photon blockade in nonlinear cavities using an n-photon parametric drive, demonstrating enhanced antibunching effects compared to traditional drives across various systems.

Contribution

The authors propose a novel n-photon parametric drive mechanism to realize n-photon blockade, validated through multiple nonlinear cavity systems and showing improved antibunching.

Findings

n-photon blockade can be engineered with an n-photon parametric drive

Simultaneous n-photon bunching and (n+1)-photon antibunching observed

Enhanced antibunching compared to coherent drive

Abstract

We propose a mechanism to engineer an $n$-photon blockade in a nonlinear cavity with an $n$-photon parametric drive $\lambda(\hat{a}^{\dag n}+\hat{a}^n)$. When an $n$-photon-excitation resonance condition is satisfied, the presence of n photons in the cavity suppresses the absorption of the subsequent photons. To confirm the validity of this proposal, we study the n-photon blockade in an atom-cavity system, a Kerr-nonlinear resonator, and two-coupled Kerr nonlinear resonators. Our results demonstrate that $n$-photon bunching and $(n+1)$-photon antibunching can be simultaneously obtained in these systems. This effect is due both to the anharmonic energy ladder and to the nature of the $n$-photon drive. To show the importance of the drive, we compare the results of the $n$-photon drive with a coherent (one-photon) drive, proving the enhancement of antibunching in the parametric-drive case. This proposal is general and can be applied to realize the $n$-photon blockade in other nonlinear systems.