Experimental generation of single photons via active multiplexing

Autor(en)

Xiaosong Ma, Stefan Zotter, Johannes Kofler, Thomas Jennewein, Anton Zeilinger

Abstrakt

An on-demand single-photon source is a fundamental building block in quantum science and technology. We experimentally demonstrate the proof of concept for a scheme to generate on-demand single photons via actively multiplexing several heralded photons probabilistically produced from pulsed spontaneous parametric down-conversions (SPDCs). By utilizing a four-photon-pair source, an active feed-forward technique, and an ultrafast single-photon router, we show a fourfold enhancement of the output photon rate. Simultaneously, we maintain the quality of the output single-photon states, confirmed by correlation measurements. We also experimentally verify, via Hong-Ou-Mandel interference, that the router does not affect the indistinguishability of the single photons. Furthermore, we give numerical simulations, which indicate that photons based on multiplexing of four SPDC sources can outperform the heralding based on highly advanced photon-number-resolving detectors. Our results show a route for on-demand single-photon generation and the practical realization of scalable linear optical quantum-information processing.

Organisation(en)

Quantenoptik, Quantennanophysik und Quanteninformation

Externe Organisation(en)

Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften (ÖAW)

Journal

Physical Review A

Band

83

Anzahl der Seiten

8

ISSN

1050-2947

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.83.043814

Publikationsdatum

2011

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

103026 Quantenoptik

Link zum Portal

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/c60325a5-f888-46a3-82d6-0d1d679cfd12