Single photons from dissipation in coupled cavities

Abstract: We propose a single photon source based on a pair of weakly nonlinear optical cavities subject to a one-directional dissipative coupling. When both cavities are driven by mutually coherent fields, sub-poissonian light is generated in the target cavity even when the nonlinear energy per photon is much smaller than the dissipation rate. The sub-poissonian character of the field holds over a delay measured by the inverse photon lifetime, as in the conventional photon blockade, thus allowing single-photon emission under pulsed excitation. We discuss a possible implementation of the dissipative coupling relevant to photonic platforms.