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

TLDR

A single cesium atom in an optical cavity is used to generate on‑demand single photons, with Gaussian‑shaped wave packets whose temporal profile and repetition rate are controlled by external driving fields. Each attempt succeeds with near‑unity probability, yielding an unpolarized photon output efficiency of 0.69 ± 0.10 and producing on average 1.4 × 10⁴ photons per atom, marking a significant advance toward distributed quantum networking.

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 x 10(4) 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.