Frankfurt 2006 – scientific programme
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Q: Quantenoptik und Photonik
Q 31: Poster Fallen und Kühlung
Q 31.12: Poster
Tuesday, March 14, 2006, 16:30–18:30, Labsaal
Towards a high efficiency photon counter — •Harald Kübler1, Andreas Chromik1, Bernd Kaltenhäuser1, Atac Imamoglu2, Tilman Pfau1, and Jürgen Stuhler1 — 15. Physikalisches Institut, Universität Stuttgart, Pfaffenwaldring 57, 70550 Stuttgart, Germany — 2Institut für Quantenelektronik, ETH Höggerberg, Wolfgang-Pauli-Str. 16, CH-8093 Zürich, Switzerland
We present progress towards a high efficiency photon counter based on storage of light as proposed in [1]. Our goal is to count photons that reach the detector in a well defined time slice with an efficiency of over 99%. For this, we want to make use of the interaction between bichromatic light and ultracold atoms with a Λ-type level structure. In particular, we want to use Rubidium atoms in a CO2-laser dipole trap, where n incoming photons will transfer n atoms into a certain state by a collective STIRAP-type process. These atoms will be detected afterwards by fluorescence with a state of the art photodiode. The atoms work as a linear amplifier for small photon numbers which will enable us to achieve high detection and counting efficiency. High efficiency photon detectors/counters may be used for tests of *Bell’s inequality* and are useful for quantum teleportation and quantum cryptography. In combination with a single photon sources they may also be used to realize simple and robust linear optical quantum computers.
[1] A. Imamoglu, Phys. Rev. Lett. 89, 163602 (2002)