Asymmetric Architecture for Heralded Single Photon Sources

TL;DR

This paper explores an asymmetric multiplexed architecture for heralded single photon sources, demonstrating improved performance and scalability over existing designs and faint laser sources, with implications for integrated quantum photonics.

Contribution

It introduces a novel asymmetric configuration and a performance index for single photon sources, showing advantages in efficiency and scalability.

Findings

Asymmetric architecture outperforms symmetric designs in realistic scenarios.

The proposed scheme offers higher single photon probability at a given signal-to-noise ratio.

Insights into integrated implementation potential of the architecture.

Abstract

Single photon source represent a fundamental building block for optical implementations of quantum information tasks ranging from basic tests of quantum physics to quantum communication and high-resolution quantum measurement. In this paper we investigate the performance of a multiplexed system based on asymmetric configuration of multiple heralded single photon sources. {To compare the effectiveness of different designs we introduce a single-photon source performance index that is based on the value of single photon probability required to achieve a guaranteed signal to noise ratio.} The performance and scalability comparison with both currently existing multiple-source architectures and faint laser configurations reveals an advantage the proposed scheme offers in realistic scenarios. This analysis also provides insights on the potential of using such architectures for integrated implementation.