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Frontiers in Optics

Trapped Ion Single-Photon Emitter for Quantum Networking

Ksenia Sosnova, Clayton Crocker, Martin Lichtman, A. Carter, Sophia Scarano, Christopher R. Monroe

Published Jan 1, 2018• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

We demonstrate a single-photon source for quantum networking based on a single trapped 138Ba+ ion subject to pulsed excitation, and measure a second-order autocorrelation of g(2)(0) = (8.1 ±2.3) × 10−5 without any background subtraction.
DOI
10.1364/fio.2018.fw7a.5

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Single atoms or atom-like emitters are the purest source of single photons, they are intrinsically incapable of multi-photon emission. To demonstrate this degree of photon number-state purity we have realized a single-photon source using a single ion trapped at the common focus of high numerical aperture lenses. Our trapped-ion source produces single-photon pulses with without any background subtraction. After subtracting detector dark counts the residual is less than 3 × 10 −4 (95% confidence interval). The multi-photon component of the source light field is low enough that we measure violation of a quantum non-Gaussian state witness, by this characterization the source output is indistinguishable from ideal attenuated single photons. In combination with efforts to enhance collection efficiency from single emitters, our results suggest that single trapped ions are not only ideal stationary qubits for quantum information processing, but promising sources of light for scalable optical quantum networks.
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We report on a novel single-photon source using a single calcium ion trapped between the end facets of two optical fibers. The optical fibers act as photonic channels, and in addition their metallic jackets provide a trapping electric field for the ion. Our system successfully combines a stable single-atom emitter with fiber optics, demonstrating remarkable compactness and scalability. In consequence, it is very well suited for use in quantum networks, where single ions interface with single photons traveling through optical fibers. We have demonstrated the non-classical character of the photons generated by this efficient source in continuous as well as pulsed mode.