Deterministic Generation of Single Photons from One Atom Trapped in a Cavity

J. McKeever, A. Boca, A. D. Boozer, R. Miller, J. R. Buck, A. Kuzmich, H. J. Kimble

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

614 Scopus citations

Abstract

A single cesium atom trapped within the mode of an optical cavity is used to generate single photons on demand. The photon wave packets are emitted as a Gaussian beam with temporal profile and repetition rate controlled by external driving fields. Each generation attempt is inferred to succeed with a probability near unity, whereas the efficiency for creating an unpolarized photon in the total cavity output is 0.69 ± 0.10, as limited by passive cavity losses. An average of 1.4 × 104 photons are produced by each trapped atom. These results constitute an important step in quantum information science, for example, toward the realization of distributed quantum networking.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)1992-1994
Number of pages3
JournalScience
Volume303
Issue number5666
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 26 2004

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • General

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