2019/04/05 by Severin Daiss, Stephan Welte, Bastian Hacker +2 · 1 voice
Computer Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Quantum Information and Cryptography #Quantum Mechanics and Applications #Quantum optics and atomic interactions
paper · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.122.133603
openalex publication_date 2019/04/05 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Single photons with tailored temporal profiles are a vital resource for future quantum networks. Here we distill them out of custom-shaped laser pulses that reflect from a single atom strongly coupled to an optical resonator. A subsequent measurement on the atom is employed to herald a successful distillation. Out of vacuum-dominated light pulses, we create single photons with fidelity 66(1)%, two-and-more-photon suppression 95.5(6)%, and a Wigner function with negative value -0.125(6). Our scheme applied to state-of-the-art fiber resonators could boost the single-photon fidelity to up to 96%.