Coherence in resonance fluorescence
Resonance fluorescence of a two-level emitter displays persistently anti-bunching irrespective of the excitation intensity, but inherits the driving laser's linewidth under weak monochromatic excitation. These properties are commonly explained in terms of two disjoined pictures, i.e., the emitter's single photon saturation or passively scattering light. Here, we propose a unified model that treats all fluorescence photons as spontaneous emission, one at a time, and can explain simultaneously both the spectral and correlation properties of the emission. We theoretically derive the excitation power dependencies, measurable at the single-photon incidence level, of the first-order coherence of the whole resonance fluorescence and super-bunching of the spectrally filtered, followed by experimental confirmation on a semiconductor quantum dot micro-pillar device. Furthermore, our model explains peculiar coincidence bunching observed in phase-dependent two-photon interference experiments. Our work provides an intuitive understanding of coherent light-matter interaction and may stimulate new applications.
Authors
- Hua‐Lei Yin
- Bang Wu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2251-9316)
- Rongzhen Jiao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1385-9346)
- Weijie Ji (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8393-2609)
- Xu-Jie Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9154-4115)
- Ming-Yang Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0005-5742-8651)
- Guoqi Huang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0290-8701)
- Li Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5641-446X)
- Zhiliang Yuan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5276-9151)
- Yuanzhuo Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1940-9741)
- Hanqing Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0004-7092-2382)
- Zhichuan Niu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9566-6635)
- Haiqiao Ni
Institutions
- Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications (CN)
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures (CN)
- Institute of Semiconductors (CN)
- Beijing Academy of Quantum Information Sciences (CN)
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Renmin University of China (CN)
- Nanjing University (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nature Communications
- Published
- 2025-07-12
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-61884-x
- Citations
- 5
- Primary Topic
- Quantum optics and atomic interactions
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 6.23
Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- Renmin University of China
- Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities