Nonreciprocal phonon blockade based on a spinning optomechanical system

Abstract Phonon blockade (PB) has attracted extensive attention due to its potential application in the development of phonon-based quantum information processing, single-phonon sources, and other single-phonon quantum devices. In this paper, we investigate the generation of nonreciprocal PB in a spinning optomechanical system that consists of a single mechanical oscillator and two rotating optical resonators. The nonreciprocal behavior is induced by the Sagnac effect and the PB originates from the strong anharmonicity of the eigenstates. We find that the frequency detuning region where the nonreciprocal PB occurs can be broadened as the angular velocities of the two optical resonators increase. The nonreciprocal PB can be modulated by the optomechanical coupling strength and the frequency detuning between the mechanical mode and the pump field. We find that the nonreciprocal PB can still exist even when the mechanical thermal phonon numbers are considered. This work provides a new way to manipulate quantum nonreciprocal devices, which are crucial elements in acoustic signal processing and precision measurement.