J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 30, 1683–1687 (2013)

Single photons are among the most crucial elements for experiments in quantum optics, quantum cryptography, quantum communication and quantum computing. Now, Liu Qiu and co-workers from the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences in China have proposed an optomechanical scheme for realizing a source of single photons that does not generate vacuum or multiphoton states. The Chinese researchers modelled a cavity with an oscillating mirror at one end that is coherently driven by a weak pulsed laser field. In this system, the energy of the photon state is reduced by radiation pressure and the resonance frequencies are slightly shifted. The researchers used the quantum trajectory method to numerically simulate the photon probability distribution. They found that it oscillated with respect to the intensity of the driving field in the case of strong coupling between the photon and the oscillating mirror, whereas it exhibited a single peak for weak coupling. The shape of the probability distribution was also affected by the width of the driving laser pulses. The researchers also numerically calculated the second-order correlation of the photons and found that the correlation value was almost zero when the driving field is weak. Their theoretical analysis suggested that a high-performance single-photon light source could be realized by controlling the central frequency, width and amplitude of the driving laser pulses.