Steady-state, cavity-less, multimode superradiance in a cold vapor

We demonstrate steady-state, mirrorless superradiance in a cold vapor pumped by weak optical fields. Beyond a critical pump intensity of 1 mW/cm$^2$, the vapor spontaneously transforms into a spatially self-organized state: a density grating forms. Scattering of the pump beams off this grating generates a pair of new, intense optical fields that act back on the vapor to enhance the atomic organization. We map out experimentally the superradiant phase transition boundary and show that it is well-described by our theoretical model. The resulting superradiant emission is nearly coherent, persists for several seconds, displays strong temporal correlations between the various modes, and has a coherence time of several hundred $\mu$s. This system therefore has applications in fundamental studies of many-body physics with long-range interactions as well as all-optical and quantum information processing.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

High Speed Chaos in Optical Feedback System with Flexible Timescales

We describe a new opto-electronic device with time-delayed feedback that uses a Mach-Zehnder interferometer as passive nonlinearity and a semiconductor laser as a current-to-optical-frequency converter. Bandlimited feedback allows tuning of the characteristic time scales of both the periodic and high dimensional chaotic oscillations that can be generated with the device. Our implementation of the device produces oscillations in the frequency range of tens to hundreds of MHz. We develop a model and use it to explore the experimentally observed Andronov-Hopf bifurcation of the steady state and to estimate the dimension of the chaotic attractor.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures, to be published in IEEE J. Quantum Electro

Scalable Cryogenic Read-out Circuit for a Superconducting Nanowire Single-Photon Detector System

The superconducting nanowire single photon detector (SNSPD) is a leading technology for quantum information science applications using photons, and they are finding increasing uses in photon-starved classical imaging applications. Critical detector characteristics, such as timing resolution (jitter), reset time and maximum count rate, are heavily influenced by the readout electronics that sense and amplify the photon detection signal. We describe a readout circuit for SNSPDs using commercial off-the-shelf amplifiers operating at cryogenic temperatures. Our design demonstrates a 35 ps timing resolution and a maximum count rate of over 2x10^7 counts per second while maintaining <3 mW power consumption per channel, making it suitable for a multichannel readout

Photon correlations in positron annihilation

The two-photon positron annihilation density matrix is found to separate into a diagonal center of energy factor implying maximally entangled momenta, and a relative factor describing decay. For unknown positron injection time, the distribution of the difference in photon arrival times is a double exponential at the para-Ps decay rate, consistent with experiment (V. D. Irby, Meas. Sci. Technol. 15, 1799 (2004)).Comment: Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

Cavity-free Photon Blockade Induced by Many-body Bound States

The manipulation of individual, mobile quanta is a key goal of quantum communication; to achieve this, nonlinear phenomena in open systems can play a critical role. We show theoretically that a variety of strong quantum nonlinear phenomena occur in a completely open one-dimensional waveguide coupled to an N-type four-level system (4LS). We focus on photon blockade and the creation of single photon states in the absence of a cavity. Many-body bound states appear due to the strong photon-photon correlation mediated by the 4LS. These bound states cause photon blockade which can generate a sub-Poissonian single photon source.Comment: 4 pages main text + 4 pages supplementary materia

Synchronization of Coupled Boolean Phase Oscillators

We design, characterize, and couple Boolean phase oscillators that include state-dependent feedback delay. The state-dependent delay allows us to realize an adjustable coupling strength, even though only Boolean signals are exchanged. Specifically, increasing the coupling strength via the range of state-dependent delay leads to larger locking ranges in uni- and bi-directional coupling of oscillators in both experiment and numerical simulation with a piecewise switching model. In the unidirectional coupling scheme, we unveil asymmetric triangular-shaped locking regions (Arnold tongues) that appear at multiples of the natural frequency of the oscillators. This extends observations of a single locking region reported in previous studies. In the bidirectional coupling scheme, we map out a symmetric locking region in the parameter space of frequency detuning and coupling strength. Because of large scalability of our setup, our observations constitute a first step towards realizing large-scale networks of coupled oscillators to address fundamental questions on the dynamical properties of networks in a new experimental setting.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figure

Observation of elliptical rings in Type-I spontaneous parametric down-conversion

We investigate the transverse spatial profile of down-converted light produced by noncollinear, degenerate, Type-I spontaneous parametric down-conversion in two types of nonlinear crystals. We find that the pattern produced by one crystal, beta barium borate (BBO), produces a circular down-conversion pattern while the other crystal, bismuth triborate (BiBO) produces an elliptical pattern. We show this difference is due to the angle-independent refractive index experienced by the daughter photons in BBO, while they experience an angle-dependent refractive index in BiBO. We image the transverse spatial profile of the generated light to determine the eccentricity produced by each crystal and develop a model to explain our observation. Among other things, this model predicts that there is a wavelength for which the eccentricity from BiBO is nearly zero. Finally, we discuss how the elliptical ring pattern produced in BiBO potentially affects polarization entanglement for experimental setups that collect biphotons around the entire down-conversion ring. We show that the quality of polarization entanglement as measured by the overlap integral of the spectrum of the two rings, can remain high (>99.4%) around the entire ring at the expense of decreased biphoton rate