Unconventional Photon Blockade in Quantum‐Well Microcavities with Squeezed Light

Abstract

The single-photon blockade effect arising in a cavity containing a quantum well and interacting with squeezed light, resulting from a down-conversion process through a nonlinear medium, is investigated. Optical parametric oscillator (OPO) materials with positive and negative second-order susceptibilities are considered. By solving the master equation analytically in the weak-driving limit and calculating the second-order equal-time correlation function, it is found that strong photon antibunching can be achieved in this system with weak excitonic nonlinearity or squeezed light via a destructive quantum interference mechanism. The optimal conditions for the photon blockade are derived analytically and discussed in details. Unlike the excitonic nonlinearity, a strong photon blockade occurs with the squeezed light at total or quasitotal resonance, even in the weak coupling regime, using an OPO material with negative second-order nonlinear susceptibility. By acting on the driving coherent pump frequency, the control of the cavity output is achieved and the scheme can serve as a tunable singlephoton emission source.