Probing photon energy statistics of an emitter using photon correlations

TL;DR

This paper presents a photon correlation spectroscopy method to distinguish and measure the homogeneous linewidth and spectral diffusion in a single photon emitter, enhancing understanding of its spectral properties.

Contribution

It introduces a model that separates homogeneous linewidth and spectral diffusion effects using photon correlation measurements, enabling more precise spectral analysis.

Findings

Homogeneous and spectral diffusion contributions affect the autocorrelation function differently.

The method can independently determine homogeneous linewidth and spectral diffusion amplitude.

Photon correlations can reveal detailed spectral dynamics of single photon emitters.

Abstract

We investigate the possibility of measuring the homogeneous and inhomogeneous contribution to the linewidth of a spectrally diffusing single photon emitter using a simple photon correlation spectroscopy method (PCS). The photon energy statistics of the homogeneous line (poissonian) and of the spectral diffusion (first order markovian) being of different natures, they act differently on the half-line autocorrelation function (HLAF). We model here their effects and show it is possible to extricate them, opening the opportunity to determine separately the homogeneous linewidth, and the spectral diffusion amplitude.