Controlling the quantum state of a single photon emitted from a single polariton

Jovica Stanojevic (1) , Valentina Parigi (1) , Erwan Bimbard (1) , Rosa Tualle-Brouri (1) , Alexei Ourjoumtsev (1) , Philippe Grangier (1)

1 Laboratoire Charles Fabry de l'Institut d'Optique / Optique quantique

We investigate in detail the optimal conditions for a high fidelity transfer from a single polariton state to a single photon state and subsequent homodyne detection of the single photon. We assume that, using various possible techniques, the single polariton has initially been stored as a spin-wave grating in a cloud of cold atoms inside a low-finesse cavity. This state is then transferred to a single photon optical pulse using an auxiliary beam. We optimize the retrieval efficiency and determine the mode of the local oscillator that maximizes the homodyne efficiency of such a photon. We find that both efficiencies can have values close to one in a large region of experimental parameters.

Domains: Quantum Physics [quant-ph]

Jovica Stanojevic, Valentina Parigi, Erwan Bimbard, Rosa Tualle-Brouri, Alexei Ourjoumtsev, et al.. Controlling the quantum state of a single photon emitted from a single polariton. Physical Review A : Atomic, molecular, and optical physics [1990-2015], 2011, 84, pp.053830. ⟨10.1103/PhysRevA.84.053830⟩. ⟨hal-00674751⟩