Broadband homodyne detection of the light transmitted by a Fabry-Perot cavity containing a strongly-coupled $^{133}$Cs atom is used to probe the dynamic optical response in a regime where semiclassical theory predicts bistability but strong quantum c
orrections should apply. While quantum fluctuations destabilize true equilibrium bistability, our observations confirm the existence of metastable states with finite lifetimes and a hysteretic response is apparent when the optical drive is modulated on comparable timescales. Our experiment elucidates remnant semiclassical behavior in the attojoule ($sim10$ photon) regime of single-atom cavity QED, of potential significance for ultra-low power photonic signal processing.
Nanophotonic technologies offer great promise for ultra-low power optical signal processing, but relatively few nonlinear-optical phenomena have yet been explored as bases for robust digital modulation/switching~cite{Yang07,Fara08,Liu10,Noza10}. Here
we show that a single two-level system (TLS) coupled strongly to an optical resonator can impart binary phase modulation on a saturating probe beam. Our experiment relies on spontaneous emission to induce occasional transitions between positive and negative phase shifts---with each such edge corresponding to a dissipated energy of just one photon ($approx 0.23$ aJ)---but an optical control beam could be used to trigger additional phase switching at signalling rates above this background. Although our ability to demonstrate controlled switching in our atom-based experiment is limited, we discuss prospects for exploiting analogous physics in a nanophotonic device incorporating a quantum dot as the TLS to realize deterministic binary phase modulation with control power in the aJ/edge regime.
