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Dynamical photon–photon interaction mediated by a quantum emitter

Nature Physics volume 18, pages 1191–1195 (2022)Cite this article

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A Publisher Correction to this article was published on 17 October 2022

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Abstract

Single photons role in the development of quantum science and technology. They can carry quantum information over extended distances to act as the backbone of a future quantum internet1 and can be manipulated in advanced photonic circuits, enabling scalable photonic quantum computing2,3. However, more sophisticated devices and protocols need access to multi-photon states with particular forms of entanglement. Efficient light–matter interfaces offer a route to reliably generating these entangled resource states4,5. Here we utilize the efficient and coherent coupling of a single quantum emitter to a nanophotonic waveguide to realize a quantum nonlinear interaction between single-photon wavepackets. We demonstrate the control of a photon using a second photon mediated by the quantum emitter. The dynamical response of the two-photon interaction is experimentally unravelled and reveals quantum correlations controlled by the pulse duration. Further development of this platform work, which constitutes a new research frontier in quantum optics6, will enable the tailoring of complex photonic quantum resource states.

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Fig. 1: Observation of dynamical photon–photon interaction.
Fig. 2: Temporal quantum correlations due to photon–photon dynamical interaction in the transmission channel.
Fig. 3: Unravelling the physical processes behind the quantum dynamics.

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Data availability

The complete dataset of time correlation measurements for different pulse lengths in all of the three propagation directions is plotted in Supplementary Figs. 1 and 2. The corresponding raw data files as well as futher data that support the findings of this work are available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request. Source data are provided with this paper.

Code availability

The code used for data analysis and simulated results is available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We thank K. Mølmer and R. Uppu for valuable discussions. We acknowledge funding from the Danish National Research Foundation (Center of Excellence ‘Hy-Q,’ grant number DNRF139). This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 824140 (TOCHA, H2020-FETPROACT-01-2018). A.D.W. and A.L. gratefully acknowledge financial support from Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) (TRR 160 and LU2051/1-1) and the grants QR.X KIS6QK4001 and DFH/UFA CDFA-05-06. Work in Madrid is funded by the Spanish project PGC2018-094792-B-I00 (MCIU/AEI/FEDER, UE), CSIC Research Platform on Quantum Technologies PTI-001 and Proyecto Sinergico CAM 2020 Y2020/TCS-6545 (NanoQuCo-CM). T.R. further acknowledges support from the Juan de la Cierva fellowship IJC2019-040260-I.

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Author notes

  1. Hanna Le Jeannic

    Present address: Laboratoire Photonique Numérique et Nanoscience, Université de Bordeaux, Institut d’Optique, CNRS, UMR 5298, Talence, France

  2. Jacques Carolan

    Present address: Wolfson Institute for Biomedical Research, University College London, London, UK

  3. Nir Rotenberg

    Present address: Centre for Nanophotonics, Department of Physics, Engineering Physics and Astronomy, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Hybrid Quantum Networks (Hy-Q), Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen Ø, Denmark

    Hanna Le Jeannic, Alexey Tiranov, Jacques Carolan, Ying Wang, Martin Hayhurst Appel, Nir Rotenberg, Leonardo Midolo, Anders S. Sørensen & Peter Lodahl

  2. Instituto de Física Fundamental IFF-CSIC, Madrid, Spain

    Tomás Ramos & Juan José García-Ripoll

  3. Lehrstuhl für Angewandte Festkörperphysik, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Bochum, Germany

    Sven Scholz, Andreas D. Wieck & Arne Ludwig

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Contributions

H.L.J., N.R., A.S.S. and P.L. designed the research and experiments. H.L.J., A.T. and J.C. carried out the experiments with participation from M.H.A. The theoretical model and simulations were developed by T.R. and J.J.G.-R. The data were analysed by H.L.J., A.T. and J.C. The semiconductor device was designed and fabricated by Y.W., L.M., S.S., A.D.W. and A.L. The paper was written by H.L.J., J.C. and P.L. with input from all authors.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Hanna Le Jeannic or Peter Lodahl.

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Competing interests

P.L. is founder of the start-up company Sparrow Quantum.

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Nature Physics thanks Satoshi Iwamoto and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary text and Figs. 1–8.

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Data used for plots in Fig. 1.

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Le Jeannic, H., Tiranov, A., Carolan, J. et al. Dynamical photon–photon interaction mediated by a quantum emitter. Nat. Phys. 18, 1191–1195 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-022-01720-x

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