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arXiv:2001.00423 · Physical Review Letters

Spectral Compression of Narrowband Single Photons with a Resonant Cavity

Mathias Alexander Seidler, Xi Jie Yeo, Alessandro Ceré, Christian Kurtsiefer

Published Oct 28, 2020• 10 citations
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Abstract

We experimentally demonstrate a spectral compression scheme for heralded single photons with narrow spectral bandwidth around 795 nm, generated through four-wave mixing in a cloud of cold ^{87}Rb atoms. The scheme is based on an asymmetric cavity as a dispersion medium and a simple binary phase modulator, and can be, in principle, without any optical losses. We observe a compression from 20.6 MHz to less than 8 MHz, almost matching the corresponding atomic transition.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.125.183603

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We experimentally demonstrate a spectral compression scheme for heralded single photons with narrow spectral bandwidth around 795 nm, generated through four-wave mixing in a cloud of cold ^{87}Rb atoms. The scheme is based on an asymmetric cavity as a dispersion medium and a simple binary phase modulator, and can be, in principle, without any optical losses. We observe a compression from 20.6 MHz to less than 8 MHz, almost matching the corresponding atomic transition.
We report an experimental demonstration of spectral compression performed on heralded 795 nm single photons with narrow spectral bandwidths about 3 times larger than the corresponding atomic transitions, generated through four-wave mixing in cold Rubidium-87 atoms. This scheme uses an asymmetric cavity as a dispersion medium to spread out the photon temporally, and subsequently a phase modulator, to modify the spectral energy distribution of the photons. The spectral bandwidth of the photons was compressed by a factor of 2.6, from 20.6 MHz to less than 8 MHz, almost matching the corresponding atomic transition linewidth of 6 MHz. The spectral compression scheme can potentially be adapted to a wide range of wavelengths and spectral widths.
Photonic quantum technologies require efficient sources of pure single photons. We present a heralded single-photon source based on spontaneous parametric down-conversion in a monolithic cavity optimized for high spectral and spatial purity. The source heralds single photons at a wavelength of 1540 nm and a spectral bandwidth of 168 MHz, with a maximum heralding efficiency of 70% including all transmission and detection losses, while keeping the multi-photon contamination below 3%. The cavity enhancement predominantly generates photons into the central cavity mode, with a theoretical upper bound on the spectral purity of 79.4% arising from nonzero overlap with adjacent cavity modes. Spectral isolation of the central cavity mode with an etalon yields an increased measured spectral purity of (96.2±2.7)%.
Photonic quantum technologies require efficient sources of pure single photons. We present a heralded single-photon source based on spontaneous parametric down-conversion in a monolithic cavity optimized for high spectral and spatial purity. The source heralds single photons at a wavelength of 1540 nm and a spectral bandwidth of 168 MHz, with a maximum heralding efficiency of 70% including all transmission and detection losses, while keeping the multi-photon contamination below 3%. The cavity enhancement predominantly generates photons into the central cavity mode, with a theoretical upper bound on the spectral purity of 79.4% arising from nonzero overlap with adjacent cavity modes. Spectral isolation of the central cavity mode with an etalon yields an increased measured spectral purity of (96.2 ±\pm± 2.7)%.
We experimentally demonstrate spectral manipulation of heralded single photons by electro-optic temporal phase modulation employing complex, Fresnel-like wide-band electronic waveforms. We show spectral compression of classical telecom light enhancing its maximal intensity by over 80, by compressing its full-width at half maximum (FWHM) bandwidth from 0.856 nm down to 3.1 pm (383 MHz), thus achieving a compression factor of over 270. We show a compression gain by increasing the aperture of a Fresnel time lens (temporal waveform duration). We demonstrate a similar compression on a single-photon level from ~1.5 nm (~190 GHz) down to the sub-2GHz regime. Our findings should significantly improve the performance of future quantum information processors based on hybrid quantum networks.