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Physical Review Letters

Nonclassical radiation of a single stored ion

F. Diedrich, HERBERT WALTHER

Published Jan 19, 1987• 587 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The resonance fluorescence of a single atomic ion stored in a radio-frequency trap was investigated. The photon correlation in the fluorescent light shows antibunching, and the probability distribution of the photon number is sub-Poissonian, both of these being properties of a nonclassical radiation field.
DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.58.203

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The photon pair correlation in the laser-excited fluorescence of a single trapped and cooled Ba+{\mathrm{Ba}}^{+}Ba+ ion shows antibunching and, in addition, novel nonclassical phenomena absent in the fluorescence of two-level atoms. They include excessive transient values of the correlation caused by optical pumping, and temporally extended sub-Poissonian photon emission probability which arises from the transient excitation of nonabsorbing Raman coherence. The fluorescence also displays sub-Poissonian photon statistics.
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