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arXiv · 1011.1973

The dressed atom as binary phase modulator: towards attojoule/edge optical phase-shift keying

Joseph Kerckhoff·Michael A. Armen·Dmitri S. Pavlichin·Hideo Mabuchi
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Abstract

Nanophotonic technologies offer great promise for ultra-low power optical signal processing, but relatively few nonlinear-optical phenomena have yet been explored as bases for robust digital modulation/switching~\cite{Yang07,Fara08,Liu10,Noza10}. Here we show that a single two-level system (TLS) coupled strongly to an optical resonator can impart binary phase modulation on a saturating probe beam. Our experiment relies on spontaneous emission to induce occasional transitions between positive and negative phase shifts---with each such edge corresponding to a dissipated energy of just one photon ($\approx 0.23$ aJ)---but an optical control beam could be used to trigger additional phase switching at signalling rates above this background. Although our ability to demonstrate controlled switching in our atom-based experiment is limited, we discuss prospects for exploiting analogous physics in a nanophotonic device incorporating a quantum dot as the TLS to realize deterministic binary phase modulation with control power in the aJ/edge regime.

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Joseph Kerckhoff, Michael A. Armen, Dmitri S. Pavlichin, Hideo Mabuchi. 2010-11-09. The dressed atom as binary phase modulator: towards attojoule/edge optical phase-shift keying. https://doi.org/10.1364/oe.19.006478

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