Polarization-controlled single photons

Abstract

Vacuum-stimulated Raman transitions are driven between two magnetic substates of a rubidium-87 atom strongly coupled to an optical cavity. A magnetic field lifts the degeneracy of these states, and the atom is alternately exposed to laser pulses of two different frequencies. This produces a stream of single photons with alternating circular polarization in a predetermined spatio-temporal mode. MHz repetition rates are possible as no recycling of the atom between photon generations is required. Photon indistinguishability is tested by time-resolved two-photon interference.

4 pages, 3 figures

References in corpus (2)

• Quantum Beat of Two Single Photons
• Robust creation of entanglement between ions in spatially separate cavities

Cited by in corpus (9)

• Manipulation and Detection of a Trapped Yb+ Ion Hyperfine Qubit
• Shaping the Phase of a Single Photon
• Fast Excitation and Photon Emission of a Single-Atom-Cavity System
• Photon emission by an atom in a lossy cavity
• Towards deterministic optical quantum computation with coherently driven atomic ensembles
• Non-linear optics with two trapped atoms
• Entanglement signature in the mode structure of a single photon
• Effects of frequency correlation in linear optical entangling gate operated with independent photons
• Deterministic generation of polarization-entangled photon pairs in a cavity-QED system