Superatom Picture of Collective Nonclassical Light Emission and Dipole Blockade in Atom Arrays

Williamson, Lewis and Borgh, Magnus O. and Ruostekoski, Janne (2020) Superatom Picture of Collective Nonclassical Light Emission and Dipole Blockade in Atom Arrays. Physical review letters, 125 (7): 073602. ISSN 0031-9007

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Abstract

We show that two-time, second-order correlations of scattered photons from planar arrays and chains of atoms display nonclassical features that can be described by a superatom picture of the canonical single-atom g2(τ) resonance fluorescence result. For the superatom, the single-atom linewidth is replaced by the linewidth of the underlying collective low light-intensity eigenmode. Strong light-induced dipole-dipole interactions lead to a correlated response, suppressed joint photon detection events, and dipole blockade that inhibits multiple excitations of the collective atomic state. For targeted subradiant modes, the nonclassical nature of emitted light can be dramatically enhanced even compared with that of a single atom.