Osnabrück 2002 – scientific programme

Parts | Days | Selection | Search | Downloads | Help

Q: Quantenoptik

Q 313: Quanteneffekte I

Q 313.1: Group Report

Wednesday, March 6, 2002, 14:00–14:30, HS 01/E02

Triggered Emission of Narrowband Single-Photon Sequences — •Axel Kuhn, Markus Hennrich, and Gerhard Rempe — Max-Planck-Institut für Quantenoptik, D-85748 Garching

Photon sources are key elements in optical quantum information processing. Most emit photons at random times, and triggered emitters were demonstrated only recently. Among these is a Coulomb-blockade based device, a fluorescing molecule, an excited colour centre or a quantum dot. However, their photons are emitted into many modes of the radiation field.

We employ a new scheme, where an atom emits photons one-by-one into a single mode of a high-finesse cavity [1]. It is based on adiabatic Raman scattering (STIRAP), with the emission stimulated by the vacuum field of the cavity [2,3]. An atom that resides in the cavity is exposed to a sequence of laser pulses, which alternate between triggering single photon emissions and reestablishing the initial condition by optical pumping. Within the limited atom-cavity interaction time, sequences of up to five single photons are observed. The second order correlation of the emitted photon stream shows strong antibunching, i.e. not more than one photon per trigger pulse is emitted. These results demonstrate that a finite-length bit-stream of single photons is possible.

[1] M. Hennrich et. al., Phys.Rev.Lett. 85, 4872-4875 (2000)

[2] A. Kuhn et. al., Appl.Phys.B 69, 373-377 (1999)

[3] A. Kuhn and G. Rempe, Varenna Lecture Notes, submitted