München 2004 – scientific programme
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Q: Quantenoptik und Photonik
Q 41: Quanteneffekte III
Q 41.3: Talk
Thursday, March 25, 2004, 17:15–17:30, HS 218
Deterministic single photon pulses from an ion-cavity system — •Matthias Keller1, Birgit Lange1, Kazuhiro Hayasaka2, Wolfgang Lange1, and Herbert Walther1 — 1Max-Planck-Institut für Quantenoptik, Garching, Germany — 2Communications Research Laboratory, Kobe, Japan
A single atom in a high-finesse optical cavity is an ideal source of single photons. Each photon is triggered by an external pump pulse and delivered to a well-defined output mode [1,2]. Completely deterministic output characteristics and a high cw-efficiency of the device require a continuous and controlled interaction between atom and field. We have met this condition by localizing a single 40Ca+-ion in a small optical cavity. By means of laser Doppler-cooling, the position spread of the ion’s wavepacket along the cavity axis was reduced to 5% of the transition wavelength, so that the Lamb-Dicke regime is reached [3].
The cavity is coupled to the transition from the excited P1/2 level to the metastable state D3/2 in 40Ca+ at a wavelength of λ=866nm. We generate single photons by driving a cavity assisted Raman transition between ground- and D-state. Mirrors with ultralow losses on the order of 10 ppm ensure a high outcoupling efficiency. The system has the potential to generate other non-classical states of the electromagnetic field.
[1] C.K.Law, H.J.Kimble, J. Mod. Opt. 44, 2067 (1997).
[2] A.Kuhn, M.Hennrich, G.Rempe, Phys. Rev. Lett. 89, 67901 (2002).
[3] G.R.Guthöhrlein, M.Keller, K.Hayasaka, W.Lange, and H.Walther, Nature 414, 49 (2001).