Spectral Compression of Narrowband Single Photons with a Resonant Cavity

Abstract

We experimentally demonstrate a spectral compression scheme for heralded single photons with narrow spectral bandwidth around 795 nm, generated through four-wave mixing in a cloud of cold ^{87}Rb atoms. The scheme is based on an asymmetric cavity as a dispersion medium and a simple binary phase modulator, and can be, in principle, without any optical losses. We observe a compression from 20.6 MHz to less than 8 MHz, almost matching the corresponding atomic transition.