https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/s10053-023-00616-6
Regular Article – Quantum Optics
Enhanced photon polarization rotation by critical coupling in cavity QED
School of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, 430074, Wuhan, People’s Republic of China
Received:
8
November
2022
Accepted:
15
February
2023
Published online:
27
February
2023
Realizing optical polarization rotation is the core of various quantum communication and quantum computation protocols based on the photon–photon and spin–photon logic gates, and many efforts have been devoted toward such a goal. In this paper, we apply the method of polarization tomography to a few-photon-level photonic crystal (PhC) cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED) system with two orthogonally polarized cavity modes, coupling to each other only indirectly via a single two-level quantum dot (TLQD). Utilizing a Born–Markov quantum master-equation approach, we calculate and analyze in detail the steady-state output light intensities in two orthogonally polarized components through various polarization bases, the Stokes parameters, and the polarization purity of interest with current experimentally accessible parameters. It is shown that a full rotation from vertically polarized input light to diagonally polarized output light, simultaneously with a high polarization purity reaching unity, can be achieved under available experimental weak-coupling conditions of cavity QED. We present the optimal point of the aforementioned polarization rotation and purity as obtained in a critically coupled cavity where intrinsic cavity losses are equal to external waveguide coupling losses. Additionally, we examine how experimental imperfections to the setup, such as non-degenerate cavity modes, asymmetric couplings, and both TLQD pure dephasing and phonon-mediated dephasing introduced, influence the polarization rotation and purity. Our predictions should be observable in current PhC cavity experiment with TLQD.
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