Periodic squeezing in a polariton Josephson junction

• Published in: Nature communications Vol. 8; no. 1; pp. 1329 - 6
• Main Authors: Adiyatullin, Albert F., Anderson, Mitchell D., Flayac, Hugo, Portella-Oberli, Marcia T., Jabeen, Fauzia, Ouellet-Plamondon, Claudéric, Sallen, Gregory C., Deveaud, Benoit
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 06.11.2017; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 639/624/399/1097; 639/624/400/2797; 639/624/400/3925; Bunching; Compressing; Coupled modes; Humanities and Social Sciences; Microcavities; multidisciplinary; Nonlinear systems; Nonlinearity; Polaritons; Quantum theory; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Statistics
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-017-01331-8

The use of a Kerr nonlinearity to generate squeezed light is a well-known way to surpass the quantum noise limit along a given field quadrature. Nevertheless, in the most common regime of weak nonlinearity, a single Kerr resonator is unable to provide the proper interrelation between the field amplitude and squeezing required to induce a sizable deviation from Poissonian statistics. We demonstrate experimentally that weakly coupled bosonic modes allow exploration of the interplay between squeezing and displacement, which can give rise to strong deviations from the Poissonian statistics. In particular, we report on the periodic bunching in a Josephson junction formed by two coupled exciton-polariton modes. Quantum modeling traces the bunching back to the presence of quadrature squeezing. Our results, linking the light statistics to squeezing, are a precursor to the study of nonclassical features in semiconductor microcavities and other weakly nonlinear bosonic systems. Here, dynamical light squeezing is observed in the emission from two coupled weakly nonlinear populations of exciton-polaritons through ultrafast time-resolved second-order correlation measurements. Full quantum simulations link the squeezing to the periodic bunching observed in the light statistics.