281 research outputs found
Room temperature stable single-photon source
We report on the realization of a stable solid state room temperature source
for single photons. It is based on the fluorescence of a single
nitrogen-vacancy (NV) color center in a diamond nanocrystal. Antibunching has
been observed in the fluorescence light under both continuous and pulsed
excitation. Our source delivers 2*10^4 single-photon pulses per second at an
excitation repetition rate of 10 MHz. The number of two-photon pulses is
reduced by a factor of five compared to strongly attenuated coherent sources.Comment: 7 pages, 10 figures, accepted to the special issue of the European
Physical Journal D on "Quantum interference and cryptographic keys: novel
physics and advancing technologies", proceedings of the conference QUICK 200
Improving teleportation of continuous variables by local operations
We study a continuous-variable (CV) teleportation protocol based on a shared
entangled state produced by the quantum-nondemolition (QND) interaction of two
vacuum states. The scheme utilizes the QND interaction or an unbalanced beam
splitter in the Bell measurement. It is shown that in the non-unity gain regime
the signal transfer coefficient can be enhanced while the conditional variance
product remains preserved by applying appropriate local squeezing operation on
sender's part of the shared entangled state. In the unity gain regime it is
demonstrated that the fidelity of teleportation can be increased with the help
of the local squeezing operations on parts of the shared entangled state that
convert effectively our scheme to the standard CV teleportation scheme.
Further, it is proved analytically that such a choice of the local symplectic
operations minimizes the noise by which the mean number of photons in the input
state is increased during the teleportation. Finally, our analysis reveals that
the local symplectic operation on sender's side can be integrated into the Bell
measurement if the interaction constant of the interaction in the Bell
measurement can be adjusted properly.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figure, discussion of the non-unity gain teleportation is
adde
Correlated Photon Emission from a Single II-VI Quantum Dot
We report correlation and cross-correlation measurements of photons emitted
under continuous wave excitation by a single II-VI quantum dot (QD) grown by
molecular-beam epitaxy. A standard technique of microphotoluminescence combined
with an ultrafast photon correlation set-up allowed us to see an antibunching
effect on photons emitted by excitons recombining in a single CdTe/ZnTe QD, as
well as cross-correlation within the biexciton ()-exciton ()
radiative cascade from the same dot. Fast microchannel plate photomultipliers
and a time-correlated single photon module gave us an overall temporal
resolution of 140 ps better than the typical exciton lifetime in II-VI QDs of
about 250ps.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, to appear in Appl. Phys. Let
Monitoring stimulated emission at the single photon level in one-dimensional atoms
We theoretically investigate signatures of stimulated emission at the single
photon level for a two-level atom interacting with a one-dimensional light
field. We consider the transient regime where the atom is initially excited,
and the steady state regime where the atom is continuously driven with an
external pump. The influence of pure dephasing is studied, clearly showing that
these effects can be evidenced with state of the art solid state devices. We
finally propose a scheme to demonstrate the stimulation of one optical
transition by monitoring another one, in three-level one-dimensional atoms.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures. Improved introduction; Comments adde
Conditional preparation of a quantum state in the continuous variable regime: generation of a sub-Poissonian state from twin beams
We report the first experimental demonstration of conditional preparation of
a non classical state of light in the continuous variable regime. Starting from
a non degenerate OPO which generates above threshold quantum intensity
correlated signal and idler "twin beams", we keep the recorded values of the
signal intensity only when the idler falls inside a band of values narrower
than its standard deviation. By this very simple technique, we generate a
sub-Poissonian state 4.4dB below shot noise from twin beams exhibiting 7.5dB of
noise reduction in the intensity difference.Comment: 4 pages, Accepted in Phys. Rev. Let
Universal optimal broadband photon cloning and entanglement creation in one dimensional atoms
We study an initially inverted three-level atom in the lambda configuration
embedded in a waveguide, interacting with a propagating single-photon pulse.
Depending on the temporal shape of the pulse, the system behaves either as an
optimal universal cloning machine, or as a highly efficient deterministic
source of maximally entangled photon pairs. This quantum transistor operates
over a wide range of frequencies, and can be implemented with today's
solid-state technologies.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure
Controlling the dynamics of a coupled atom-cavity system by pure dephasing : basics and potential applications in nanophotonics
The influence of pure dephasing on the dynamics of the coupling between a
two-level atom and a cavity mode is systematically addressed. We have derived
an effective atom-cavity coupling rate that is shown to be a key parameter in
the physics of the problem, allowing to generalize the known expression for the
Purcell factor to the case of broad emitters, and to define strategies to
optimize the performances of broad emitters-based single photon sources.
Moreover, pure dephasing is shown to be able to restore lasing in presence of
detuning, a further demonstration that decoherence can be seen as a fundamental
resource in solid-state cavity quantum electrodynamics, offering appealing
perspectives in the context of advanced nano-photonic devices.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figure
Quantum Non-demolition Measurements on Qubits
We discuss the characterization and properties of quantum non-demolition
(QND) measurements on qubit systems. We introduce figures of merit which can be
applied to systems of any Hilbert space dimension thus providing universal
criteria for characterizing QND measurements. We discuss the controlled-NOT
gate and an optical implementation as examples of QND devices for qubits. We
also discuss the QND measurement of weak values
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