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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik

Q 2: Quanteninformation: Atome und Ionen I

Q 2.2: Talk

Monday, March 2, 2009, 11:00–11:15, ESA-B

Single-photon spectroscopy on a single ion — •Carsten Schuck, Nicolas Piro, Felix Rohde, Marc Almendros, Jan Huwer, Morgan W. Mitchell, Markus Hennrich, Francois Dubin, Albrecht Haase, and Jürgen Eschner — ICFO - The Institute of Photonic Sciences, Mediterranean Technology Park, 08860 Castelldefels (Barcelona), Spain

The realization of a quantum network requires the distribution of entanglement between its nodes. For some of the most promising implementations this requires the interaction of single atoms with single photons. Here we investigate the interaction of a single calcium ion with heralded single photons generated by a spontaneous parametric down-conversion source whose emission is tailored to coincide with the 20MHz bandwidth of the atomic resonance [1]. We focus these photons onto the atom with a high numerical aperture lens and monitor the rate of fluorescence photons continuously emitted by the laser-cooled ion. On absorption of a photon from the pair-source the ion may subsequently decay to a metastable state outside the cooling cycle, i.e. we observe a quantum jump in the fluorescence rate. We perform single-photon spectroscopy of a single atom by measuring the rate of these quantum jumps as a function of the photon pair generation rate and the detuning of the down conversion source from the atomic transition. In both cases we observe clear evidence for the interaction between heralded down-conversion photons and a single trapped ion.

[1] A. Haase et al., Opt. Lett. in print (arXiv:0808.1988)