posted on 2020-09-28, 11:14authored byMatthias KellerMatthias Keller, Thomas Walker, Samir Vartabi Kashanian, Travers Ward
Data file for the figures in paper published in
Physical Review A, Sept 2020
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Abstract
We investigate two schemes for generating indistinguishable single photons, a key feature of quantum networks, from a trapped ion coupled to an optical cavity. Through selection of the initial state in a cavity-assisted Raman transition, we suppress the detrimental effects of spontaneous emission on the photon's coherence length, measuring a visibility of 81(2)% without subtraction of background counts in a Hong-Ou-Mandel interference measurement, the highest reported for an ion-cavity system. In comparison, a visibility of 50(2)% was measured using a more conventional single-photon scheme. We demonstrate through numerical analysis of the single-photon generation process that our scheme produces photons of a given indistinguishability with a greater efficiency than the conventional one. Single-photon schemes such as the one demonstrated here have applications in distributed quantum computing and communications, which rely on high-fidelity entanglement swapping and state transfer through indistinguishable single photons.
Funding
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) through the UK Quantum Technology Hub: NQIT - Networked Quantum Information Technologies EP/M013243/1.