Comparison of multi-mode Hong-Ou-Mandel interference and multi-slit interference.

Hong-Ou-Mandel (HOM) interference of multi-mode frequency entangled states plays a crucial role in quantum metrology. However, as the number of modes increases, the HOM interference pattern becomes increasingly complex, making it challenging to comprehend intuitively. To overcome this problem, we present the theory and simulation of multi-mode-HOM interference (MM-HOMI) and compare it to multi-slit interference (MSI). We find that these two interferences have a strong mapping relationship and are determined by two factors: the envelope factor and the details factor. The envelope factor is contributed by the single-mode HOM interference (single-slit diffraction) for MM-HOMI (MSI). The details factor is given by sin (Nx)/sin (x) ([sin (Nv)/sin (v)]2) for MM-HOMI (MSI), where N is the mode (slit) number and x (v) is the phase spacing of two adjacent spectral modes (slits). As a potential application, we demonstrate that the square root of the maximal Fisher information in MM-HOMI increases linearly with the number of modes, indicating that MM-HOMI is a powerful tool for enhancing precision in time estimation. We also discuss multi-mode Mach-Zehnder interference, multi-mode NOON-state interference, and the extended Wiener-Khinchin theorem. This work may provide an intuitive understanding of MM-HOMI patterns and promote the application of MM-HOMI in quantum metrology.

Azimuthal and radial modulation of double-four-wave mixing in a coherently driven graphene ensemble.

We investigate in detail the azimuthal and radial modulation (i.e., the azimuthal order lj and radial order pj with j = 1, 2) of double-four-wave mixing (double-FWM) by use of two higher-order Laguerre-Gaussian (LG) beams in a Landau quantized graphene ensemble. A pair of weak probe pulses in the graphene ensemble interacts with two LG beams and thus two vortex FWM fields with the opposite vorticity are subsequently generated. In combination with numerical simulations, we reveal that (i) there appear l1 + l2 periods of phase jumps in the phase profiles under any conditions; (ii) p + 1 concentric rings emerge in the intensity profile and the strength is mainly concentrated on the inner ring when the two LG beams have the same radial orders (i.e., p1 = p2 = p); (iii) there are p raised narrow rings occurring in the phase profile in the case of p1 = p2 = p and l1 ≠ l2, and the raised narrow rings would disappear when p1 = p2 and l1 = l2; (iv) pmax + 1 concentric rings appear in the intensity profile, meanwhile, |p1 - p2| convex discs and pmin raised narrow rings emerge in the phase diagram in the case of p1 ≠ p2, here pmax = max(p1, p2) and pmin = min(p1, p2). Moreover, the two generated FWM fields have the same results, and the difference is that the phase jumps are completely opposite. These findings may have potential application in graphene-based nonlinear optical device by using LG beams with adjustable mode orders.

Mid-infrared spectrally-uncorrelated biphotons generation from doped PPLN: a theoretical investigation.

We theoretically investigate the preparation of mid-infrared (MIR) spectrally-uncorrelated biphotons from a spontaneous parametric down-conversion process using doped LN crystals, including MgO doped LN, ZnO doped LN, and In2O3 doped ZnLN with doping ratio from 0 to 7 mol%. The tilt angle of the phase-matching function and the corresponding poling period are calculated under type-II, type-I, and type-0 phase-matching conditions. We also calculate the thermal properties of the doped LN crystals and their performance in Hong-Ou-Mandel interference. It is found that the doping ratio has a substantial impact on the group-velocity-matching (GVM) wavelengths. Especially, the GVM2 wavelength of co-doped InZnLN crystal has a tunable range of 678.7 nm, which is much broader than the tunable range of less than 100 nm achieved by the conventional method of adjusting the temperature. It can be concluded that the doping ratio can be utilized as a degree of freedom to manipulate the biphoton state. The spectrally uncorrelated biphotons can be used to prepare pure single-photon source and entangled photon source, which may have promising applications for quantum-enhanced sensing, imaging, and communications at the MIR range.

Controllable population dynamics in Landau-quantized graphene.

In this paper, we carry out a theoretical investigation on the population dynamics of graphene system under continuous-wave (cw) laser and chirped pulse excitation. Results of our numerical simulations reveal that complete population transfer from an initially occupied ground state to the initially unoccupied excited states can be achieved by choosing appropriate values of the chirp rate, the laser field intensity and frequency, as well as other system parameters. Also, we observe coherent Rabi-like population oscillations between the initial ground state and the excited final state. It is induced by the combined effect of cw and chirped-pulse laser fields. These results will contribute to the understanding of carrier-carrier and carrier-phonon interactions in graphene system, and may find applications in graphene-based high-speed electronic and optoelectronic devices.

Optical bistability and four-wave mixing with a single nitrogen-vacancy center coupled to a photonic crystal nanocavity in the weak-coupling regime.

We explore optical bistability and degenerate four-wave mixing of a hybrid optical system composed of a photonic crystal nanocavity, a single nitrogen-vacancy center embedded in the cavity, and a nearby photonic waveguide serving for in- and outcoupling of light into the cavity in the weak-coupling regime. Here the hybrid system is coherently driven by a continuous-wave bichromatic laser field consisting of a strong control field and a weak probe field. We take account of the nonlinear nature of the nitrogen-vacancy center in the Heisenberg-Langevin equations and give an effective perturbation method to deal with such problems in the continuous-wave-operation regime. The results clearly show that the bistability region of the population inversion and the intensity of the generated four-wave mixing field can be well controlled by properly adjusting the system practical parameters. The nanophotonic platform can be used to implement our proposal. This investigation may be useful for gaining further insight into the properties of solid-state cavity quantum electrodynamics system and find applications in all-optical wavelength converter and switch in a photonic crystal platform.

High-precision atom localization via controllable spontaneous emission in a cycle-configuration atomic system.

A scheme for realizing two-dimensional (2D) atom localization is proposed based on controllable spontaneous emission in a coherently driven cycle-configuration atomic system. As the spatial-position-dependent atom-field interaction, the frequency of the spontaneously emitted photon carries the information about the position of the atom. Therefore, by detecting the emitted photon one could obtain the position information available, and then we demonstrate high-precision and high-resolution 2D atom localization induced by the quantum interference between the multiple spontaneous decay channels. Moreover, we can achieve 100% probability of finding the atom at an expected position by choosing appropriate system parameters under certain conditions.

Solutions of the cylindrical nonlinear Maxwell equations.

Cylindrical nonlinear optics is a burgeoning research area which describes cylindrical electromagnetic wave propagation in nonlinear media. Finding new exact solutions for different types of nonlinearity and inhomogeneity to describe cylindrical electromagnetic wave propagation is of great interest and meaningful for theory and application. This paper gives exact solutions for the cylindrical nonlinear Maxwell equations and presents an interesting connection between the exact solutions for different cylindrical nonlinear Maxwell equations. We also provide some examples and discussion to show the application of the results we obtained. Our results provide the basis for solving complex systems of nonlinearity and inhomogeneity with simple systems.

Second-harmonic generation of cylindrical electromagnetic waves propagating in an inhomogeneous and nonlinear medium.

A general description of cylindrical electromagnetic waves propagating in nonlinear and inhomogeneous media is given by deducing cylindrical coupled-wave equations. Based on the cylindrical coupled-wave equations, we analyze second-harmonic generation (SHG) of some special cases of inhomogeneity, and find that the inhomogeneity of the first- and second-order polarization can influence the amplitude of the SHG. From a different point of view, exact solutions of cylindrical electromagnetic waves propagating in a nonlinear medium with a special case of inhomogeneity have been obtained previously. We show that cylindrical SHG in an inhomogeneous and nonlinear medium can also be deduced from exact solutions. As verification, we compare the results obtained from the two different methods and find that descriptions of SHG by the coupled-wave equations are in good agreement with the exact solutions.