Related papers: Doubly-heralded single-photon absorption by a sing…
The interaction of light with a single two-level emitter is the most fundamental process in quantum optics, and is key to many quantum applications. As a distinctive feature, two photons are never detected simultaneously in the light…
We show that a three-level lambda quantum emitter with equal spontaneous emission rates on both optically active transitions can absorb an incident light field with a probability approaching unity, provided that the focused light profile…
A scheme for entangling distant atoms is realized, as proposed in the seminal paper by Cabrillo et al. [Phys. Rev. A 59, 1025 (1999)]. The protocol is based on quantum interference and detection of a single photon scattered from two…
We demonstrate the generation of non-diffracting heralded single photons, i.e. which are characterized by a single-photon transverse intensity distribution which remains essentially unchanged over a significant propagation distance. For…
The time-energy entanglement of down-converted photon pairs is particularly difficult to characterize because direct measurements of photon arrival times are limited by the temporal resolution of photon detection. Here, we explore an…
Single-photon sources are in high demand for quantum information applications. A paradigmatic way to achieve single-photon emission is through anharmonicity in the energy levels, such that the absorption of a single photon from a coherent…
Parametric downconversion (PDC) is a technique of ubiquitous experimental significance in the production of non-classical, photon-number correlated twin beams. Standard theory of PDC as a two-mode squeezing process predicts and homodyne…
The retrieval of the phase with single-photon states is a fundamental and technical challenging endeavor. Here we report the first experimental realization of hologram recordings with heralded single-photon illumination and continuous…
We theoretically discuss one-photon and two-photon double-slit interferences for spontaneous and stimulated parametric down-conversions. We show that the two-photon sub-wavelength interference can exist in a general spontaneous parametric…
Double ionization of an atom by single-photon absorption in the presence of a neighbouring atom is studied. The latter is, first, resonantly photoexcited and, afterwards, transfers the excitation energy radiationlessly to the other atom,…
Single atoms or atom-like emitters are the purest source of on-demand single photons, they are intrinsically incapable of multi-photon emission. To demonstrate this degree of purity we have realized a tunable, on-demand source of single…
We prepare heralded single photons from a photon pair source based on non-degenerate four-wave mixing in a cold atomic ensemble via a cascade decay scheme. Their statistics shows strong antibunching with g(2)(0) < 0.03, indicating a near…
Single photons produced by fundamentally dissimilar physical processes will in general not be indistinguishable. We show how photons produced from a quantum dot and by parametric down-conversion in a nonlinear crystal can be manipulated to…
Dark photon is a massive vector particle which couples to the physical photon through the kinetic mixing term. Such particles, if exist, are produced in photon beams and, in particular, in laser radiation. Due to the oscillations between…
The heralded generation of entangled states is a long-standing goal in quantum information processing, because it is indispensable for a number of quantum protocols. Polarization entangled photon pairs are usually generated through…
We present, characterize, and apply a photonic quantum interface between the near infrared and telecom spectral regions. A singly resonant optical parametric oscillator (OPO) operated below threshold, in combination with external filters,…
Deterministic generation of single photons is essential for many quantum information technologies. A bulk optical nonlinearity emitting a photon pair, where the measurement of one of the photons heralds the presence of the other, is…
We provide a unified theoretical approach to the quantum dynamics of absorption of single photons and subsequent excitonic energy transfer in photosynthetic light-harvesting complexes. Our analysis combines a continuous mode <n>-photon…
We propose a setup for a heralded, i.e. announced generation of a pure single-photon state given two imperfect sources whose outputs are represented by mixtures of the single-photon Fock state $\ket{1}$ with the vacuum $\ket{0}$. Our…
Spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) is a widely used source for photonic entanglement. Years of focused research have led to a solid understanding of the process, but a cohesive analytical description of the paraxial biphoton…