Observation of the Unconventional Photon Blockade in the Microwave Domain

Phys Rev Lett. 2018 Jul 27;121(4):043602. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.043602.

Abstract

We have observed the unconventional photon blockade effect for microwave photons using two coupled superconducting resonators. As opposed to the conventional blockade, only weakly nonlinear resonators are required. The blockade is revealed through measurements of the second order correlation function g^{(2)}(t) of the microwave field inside one of the two resonators. The lowest measured value of g^{(2)}(0) is 0.4 for a resonator population of approximately 10^{-2} photons. The time evolution of g^{(2)}(t) exhibits an oscillatory behavior, which is characteristic of the unconventional photon blockade.