A. MacRae, T. Brannan, A. I. Lvovsky
We demonstrate the efficient heralded generation of high purity narrow-bandwidth single photons from a transient collective spin excitation in a hot atomic vapour cell. Employing optical homodyne tomography, we fully reconstruct the density matrix of the generated photon and observe a Wigner function reaching the zero value without correcting for any inefficiencies. The narrow bandwidth of the photon produced is accompanied by a high generation rate yielding a high spectral brightness. The source is therefore compatible with atomic-based quantum memories as well as other applications in light-atom interfacing. This work paves the way to preparing and measuring arbitrary superposition states of collective atomic excitations.
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http://arxiv.org/abs/1112.4855
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