Attractive photons in a quantum nonlinear medium
Name
Attractive Photons in a Quantum Nonlinear Medium -- July 2013.pdf
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Author(s)
Firstenberg, Ofer
Peyronel, Thibault
Liang, Qi-Yu
Gorshkov, Alexey V.
Lukin, Mikhail D.
Vuletic, Vladan
Date Issued
September 2013
Journal
Nature
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
Citation
Firstenberg, Ofer, Thibault Peyronel, Qi-Yu Liang, Alexey V. Gorshkov, Mikhail D. Lukin, and Vladan Vuletic. “Attractive Photons in a Quantum Nonlinear Medium.” Nature 502, no. 7469 (September 25, 2013): 71–75.
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Author's final manuscript
Abstract
The fundamental properties of light derive from its constituent particles—massless quanta (photons) that do not interact with one another. However, it has long been known that the realization of coherent interactions between individual photons, akin to those associated with conventional massive particles, could enable a wide variety of novel scientific and engineering applications. Here we demonstrate a quantum nonlinear medium inside which individual photons travel as massive particles with strong mutual attraction, such that the propagation of photon pairs is dominated by a two-photon bound state. We achieve this through dispersive coupling of light to strongly interacting atoms in highly excited Rydberg states. We measure the dynamical evolution of the two-photon wavefunction using time-resolved quantum state tomography, and demonstrate a conditional phase shift exceeding one radian, resulting in polarization-entangled photon pairs. Particular applications of this technique include all-optical switching, deterministic photonic quantum logic and the generation of strongly correlated states of light.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Research Laboratory of Electronics
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Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1038/nature12512
