Perfect single-photon sources

We introduce the gapped coherent state in the form of a single-photon source (SPS) that consists of uncorrelated photons as a background, except that we demand that no two photons can be closer in time than a time gap  t G . While no obvious quantum mechanism is yet identified to produce exactly suc...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inScientific reports Vol. 14; no. 1; p. 2684
Main Authors Khalid, Sana, Laussy, Fabrice P.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published London Nature Publishing Group UK 01.02.2024
Nature Publishing Group
Nature Portfolio
Subjects
639/624/400/3925
639/624/400/482
Humanities and Social Sciences
Mathematical models
multidisciplinary
Photons
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
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Summary:We introduce the gapped coherent state in the form of a single-photon source (SPS) that consists of uncorrelated photons as a background, except that we demand that no two photons can be closer in time than a time gap  t G . While no obvious quantum mechanism is yet identified to produce exactly such a photon stream, a numerical simulation is easily achieved by first generating an uncorrelated (Poissonian) signal and then for each photon in the list, either adding such a time gap or removing all photons that are closer in time from each other than  t G . We study the statistical properties of such a hypothetical signal, which exhibits counter-intuitive features. This provides a neat and natural connection between continuous-wave (stationary) and pulsed single-photon sources, with also a bearing on what it means for such sources to be perfect in terms of single-photon emission.
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ISSN:2045-2322
2045-2322
DOI:10.1038/s41598-023-47585-9