Single photons from dissipation in coupled cavities

H. Flayac, V. Savona

Published 2015-12-17Version 1

We propose a single photon source based on a pair of weakly nonlinear optical cavities subject to a one-directional dissipative coupling. When both cavities are driven by mutually coherent fields, sub-poissonian light is generated in the target cavity even when the nonlinear energy per photon is much smaller than the dissipation rate. The sub-poissonian character of the field holds over a delay measured by the inverse photon lifetime, as in the conventional photon blockade, thus allowing single-photon emission under pulsed excitation. We study a possible implementation of the dissipative coupling, compatible with current photonic platforms.