Cavity-funneled generation of indistinguishable single photons from strongly dissipative quantum emitters

TL;DR

This paper theoretically demonstrates that strongly dissipative quantum emitters inside optical cavities can produce highly indistinguishable single photons, especially in a regime where cavity funneling enhances photon quality and efficiency at room temperature.

Contribution

It introduces a novel regime where dissipative quantum emitters generate indistinguishable photons via cavity funneling, surpassing spectral filtering limitations.

Findings

High photon indistinguishability achievable with moderate coupling and high-Q cavities.

Cavity funneling significantly improves efficiency over spectral filtering.

Room temperature operation of scalable photon sources is feasible.

Abstract

We investigate theoretically the generation of indistinguishable single photons from a strongly dissipative quantum system placed inside an optical cavity. The degree of indistinguishability of photons emitted by the cavity is calculated as a function of the emitter-cavity coupling strength and the cavity linewidth. For a quantum emitter subject to strong pure dephasing, our calculations reveal that an unconventional regime of high indistinguishability can be reached for moderate emittercavity coupling strengths and high quality factor cavities. In this regime, the broad spectrum of a dissipative quantum system is funneled into the narrow lineshape of a cavity. The associated efficiency is found to greatly surpass spectral filtering effects. Our findings open the path towards on-chip scalable indistinguishable-photon emitting devices operating at room temperature.