Unconventional Photon Blockade in a Symmetrically Driven Nonlinear Dimer

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates unconventional photon blockade in a symmetric Kerr dimer with equal-amplitude drives, achieving antibunched light emission that is robust to fabrication disorder and operable with standard detectors.

Contribution

It introduces a new scheme for photon blockade using symmetric driving and phase tuning, eliminating the need for cavity trimming and enabling practical quantum light sources.

Findings

Minimum inter-cavity coupling J_min = γ/4 at U ≪ γ.

Strong antibunching observed with standard detectors.

Disorder effects can be compensated by drive phase tuning.

Abstract

We demonstrate unconventional photon blockade in a symmetric Kerr dimer driven with equal-amplitude fields at a $90^\circ$ phase difference. The minimum inter-cavity coupling is $J_{\min} = \gamma/4$ at a Kerr nonlinearity $U \ll \gamma$ achievable in standard photonic molecules. The quadrature-driven site emits strongly antibunched light with a smooth, oscillation-free second-order correlator directly resolvable with standard detectors. The scheme operates under continuous-wave and pulsed excitation, and fabrication disorder can be fully compensated by re-tuning the drive phase, removing the need for post-fabrication cavity trimming.