Artificial atoms can do more than atoms: Deterministic single photon subtraction from arbitrary light fields

Hans Peter Büchler, Jens Honer, Robert Löw, Hendrik Weimer, Tilman Pfau  

University of Stuttgart, Germany

We study the interplay of photons interacting with an artificial atom in the presence of a controlled dephasing. Such artifical atoms consisting of several independent scatterer can exhibit remarkable properties superior to single atoms with a prominent example being a superatom based on Rydberg blockade. We demonstrate that the induced dephasing allows for the controlled absorption of a single photon from an arbitrary incoming probe field. This unique tool in photon-matter interaction opens a way for building novel quantum devices and several potential applications like a single photon transistor, high fidelity n-photon counters, or for the creation of non-classical states of light by photon subtraction are presented.

external pagehttp://prl.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v107/i9/e093601call_made