Changing optical band structure with single photons

Understand

Achieving strong interactions between individual photons enables a wide variety of exciting possibilities in quantum information science and many-body physics.

• Cold atoms interfaced with nanophotonic structures have emerged as a platform to realize novel forms of nonlinear interactions.
• In particular, when atoms are coupled to a photonic crystal waveguide (PCW), long-range atomic interactions can arise that are mediated by localized atom-photon bound states.
• We theoretically show that in such a system, the absorption of a single photon can change the band structure for a subsequent photon.