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Origin of strong photon antibunching in weakly nonlinear photonic molecules

2011; American Physical Society; Volume: 83; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1103/physreva.83.021802

1538-4446

Motoaki Bamba, Ataç İmamoğlu, Iacopo Carusotto, Cristiano Ciuti,

Quantum optics and atomic interactions

In a recent work [T. C. H. Liew and V. Savona, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf104}, 183601 (2010)] it was numerically shown that in a photonic 'molecule' consisting of two coupled cavities, near-resonant coherent excitation could give rise to strong photon antibunching with a surprisingly weak nonlinearity. Here, we show that a subtle quantum interference effect is responsible for the predicted efficient photon blockade effect. We analytically determine the optimal on-site nonlinearity and frequency detuning between the pump field and the cavity mode. We also highlight the limitations of the proposal and its potential applications in demonstration of strongly correlated photonic systems in arrays of weakly nonlinear cavities.