Disorder-Induced Strongly Correlated Photons in Waveguide QED

Abstract: Strongly correlated photons play a crucial role in modern quantum technologies. Here, we investigate the probability of generating strongly correlated photons in a chain of N qubits coupled to a one-dimensional (1D) waveguide. We found that disorder in the transition frequencies can induce photon antibunching, and especially nearly perfect photon blockade events in the transmission and reflection outputs. As a comparison, in ordered chains, strongly correlated photons cannot be generated in the transmission output, and only weakly antibunched photons are found in the reflection output. The occurrence of nearly perfect photon blockade events stems from the disorder-induced near completely destructive interference of photon scattering paths. Our work highlights the impact of disorder on photon correlation generation and suggests that disorder can enhance the potential for achieving strongly correlated photon.