We discuss the observability of strong coupling between single photons in semiconductor microcavities coupled by a chi(2) nonlinearity. We present two schemes and analyze the feasibility of their practical implementation in three systems: photonic crystal defects, micropillars and microdisks, fabricated out of GaAs. We show that if a weak coherent state is used to enhance the chi(2) interaction, the strong coupling regime between two modes at different frequencies occupied by a single photon is within reach of current technology. The unstimulated strong coupling of a single photon and a photon pair is very challenging and will require an improvement in mirocavity quality factors of 2-4 orders of magnitude to be observable.
@article{arxiv.quant-ph/0602085,
title = {Strong coupling between single photons in semiconductor microcavities},
author = {William T. M. Irvine and Kevin Hennessy and Dirk Bouwmeester},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:quant-ph/0602085},
year = {2009}
}