We study the interplay of photons interacting with an artificial atom in the presence of a controlled dephasing. Such artifical atoms consisting of several independent scatterer can exhibit remarkable properties superior to single atoms with a prominent example being a superatom based on Rydberg blockade. We demonstrate that the induced dephasing allows for the controlled absorption of a single photon from an arbitrary incoming probe field. This unique tool in photon-matter interaction opens a way for building novel quantum devices and several potential applications like a single photon transistor, high fidelity n-photon counters, or for the creation of non-classical states of light by photon subtraction are presented.
@article{arxiv.1103.1319,
title = {Artificial atoms can do more than atoms: Deterministic single photon subtraction from arbitrary light fields},
author = {Jens Honer and Robert Löw and Hendrik Weimer and Tilman Pfau and Hans Peter Büchler},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1103.1319},
year = {2012}
}