Non-reciprocal cavity polariton

Breaking the time-reversal symmetry of light is of great importance for fundamental physics, and also have attracted increasing interests in the study of non-reciprocal photonics for applications. The optical non-reciprocity has been realized by engineering the susceptibility of dielectric, through either magneto-optics effect with bias magnetic field or directional coherent nonlinear optical effects stimulated by external drives. Here, we experimentally demonstrate an inherently non-reciprocal quasiparticle, i.e. the cavity polariton, in a strongly coupled cavity quantum electrodynamics system. Through carefully manipulating the internal quantum state of atoms to break the time-reversal symmetry, the polariton shows non-reciprocal photon emission without bias field. Such non-reciprocal polariton state leads to optical isolation exceeds 30dB on single-quanta level ($\sim0.1$ photon), and also produces non-reciprocal non-classical statistics with coherent probe lights, manifesting the quantum nature of the non-reciprocal polaritons. Such new quasiparticle demonstrated in this work holds great potential for exploring the quantum non-reciprocity in photonics and quantum network applications, and also new topological phases in many-body physics.