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Q: Quantenoptik

Q 9: Poster: Quantum Information

Q 9.21: Poster

Tuesday, April 3, 2001, 12:30–15:00, AT2

Pulsed generation of photons by vacuum stimulated Raman scattering — •Markus Hennrich, Thomas Legero, Axel Kuhn, and Gerhard Rempe — Max-Planck-Institut für Quantenoptik, D-85748 Garching

We have recently demonstrated that it is possible to generate single photons by stimulated emission in a single-mode optical cavity containing only the vacuum field. The photons are well collimated and well defined in frequency [1]. Here we report on the pulsed generation of such photons.

In our experiment, rubidium atoms are released from a magneto-optical trap and fall one by one through the mode of an optical cavity. A pump laser perpendicular to the cavity axis is switched on while an atom resides inside the cavity mode. Consequently a single photon is placed into the cavity mode by means of a highly efficient adiabatic Raman transfer where pump laser and the vacuum mode of the cavity drive the Raman transition. Since the photon leaves the cavity through the less reflecting mirror, the atom is not coupled to the cavity field any more. Therefore the pump laser can be switched off without adiabatic population return. Outside, the generated photons are detected by a single photon counting module. The correlation between the pump laser pulse and the detected photon shows clear evidence for a pulsed photon generation.

[1] M. Hennrich, T. Legero, A. Kuhn and G. Rempe, Phys. Rev. Lett. 85, 4872-4875 (2000).