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Quantum nonlinear optics

Tailored single photons

Nature Photonics volume 7, pages 345–346 (2013)Cite this article

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A convenient optical scheme for compressing the bandwidth and tuning the frequency of single photons could allow photon qubits to be used in matter-based quantum memories. This development is also an important step towards arbitrary waveform generation of quantum states of light.

Single photons, either isolated or one of an entangled pair, are essential components in many quantum information applications, including quantum computing1 and long-distance quantum communication2. In many such applications, progressing from proof-of-concept demonstrations to mature technologies will require tailoring single-photon waveforms. Now writing in Nature Photonics3, J. Lavoie and co-workers report the ability to compress the bandwidth of single photons by a factor of 40 — from 1,740 GHz to 43 GHz — and tune their centre frequency over a 3 nm range. Importantly, the researchers also demonstrate that when this pulse shaping is performed on one photon of a correlated pair generated by parametric downconversion, the timing correlations between the two photons are preserved, which is a requirement for most quantum-information applications.

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Figure 1: Schematic of the upconversion and bandwidth compression scheme.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Matthew Eisaman is at the Sustainable Energy Technologies Department, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Building 734, Upton, New York 11973, USA,

    Matthew Eisaman

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  1. Matthew Eisaman
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Correspondence to Matthew Eisaman.

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Eisaman, M. Tailored single photons. Nature Photon 7, 345–346 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2013.96

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2013.96

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