Two photons co- and counterpropagating through N cross-Kerr sites

A cross-Kerr interaction produces a phase shift on two modes of light proportional to the number of photons in both modes and is sometimes called cross-phase modulation. Cross-Kerr nonlinearities have many applications in classical and quantum nonlinear optics, including the possibility of a deterministic and all-optical controlled-phase gate. We calculate the one- and two-photon $S$ matrices for fields propagating in a medium where the cross-Kerr interaction is spatially distributed at discrete interaction sites comprised of atoms. For the interactions considered, we analyze the cases where the photons copropagate and counterpropagate through the medium and give a physical interpretation to the differences between the two cases. Finally, we obtain the $S$ matrix in the limit of infinitely long chains, showing that it corresponds to a perfect controlled-phase operation.