Lu Xingda, Cao Wanxia, Yi Wei, Shen Heng, Xiao Yanhong
Department of Physics, State Key Laboratory of Surface Physics and Key Laboratory of Micro and Nano Photonic Structures (Ministry of Education), Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China.
CAS Key Laboratory of Quantum Information, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China.
Phys Rev Lett. 2021 Jun 4;126(22):223603. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.126.223603.
The breaking of reciprocity is a topic of great interest in fundamental physics and optical information processing applications. We demonstrate nonreciprocal light transport in a quantum system of hot atoms by engineering the dissipative atomic reservoir. Our scheme is based on the phase-sensitive light transport in a multichannel photon-atom interaction configuration, where the phase of collective atomic excitations is tunable through external driving fields. Remarkably, we observe interchannel quantum correlations that originate from interactions with the judiciously engineered reservoir. The nonreciprocal transport in a quantum optical atomic system constitutes a new paradigm for atom-based nonreciprocal optics and offers opportunities for quantum simulations with coupled optical channels.
互易性的打破是基础物理学和光学信息处理应用中一个备受关注的话题。我们通过设计耗散原子库，在热原子量子系统中展示了非互易光传输。我们的方案基于多通道光子 - 原子相互作用配置中的相敏光传输，其中集体原子激发的相位可通过外部驱动场进行调控。值得注意的是，我们观察到了源于与精心设计的库相互作用的通道间量子关联。量子光学原子系统中的非互易传输构成了基于原子的非互易光学的新范式，并为耦合光通道的量子模拟提供了机会。
