Shaping a single photon without interacting with it

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel, lossless, and scalable method for shaping single photons across multiple degrees of freedom, enhancing control for quantum information applications.

Contribution

A new generic heralded method for lossless, scalable, and multi-degree-of-freedom photon shaping compatible with current technologies.

Findings

Enables lossless shaping of single photons.

Supports shaping across multiple degrees of freedom.

Compatible with existing quantum photonics technologies.

Abstract

Complete control over the properties of light up to the level of single photons is an invaluable tool for quantum information science and fundamental studies of light-matter interaction. The crucial prerequisite is the ability to create a spatio-temporal distribution of single-photon electromagnetic field with the desired characteristics, i.e. to shape a photon by design. Despite the ever-growing demand for tuneable single-photon sources, there is a lack of practical, efficient and scalable methods for photon shaping. Here we put forward a novel generic method that enables lossless shaping of single photons with respect to any degree of freedom or several degrees of freedom simultaneously. Shaping is performed in a heralded manner, which ensures flexibility and scalability of the scheme. Our method can be directly integrated with the current technologies: this enables experimental realization of numerous proposals involving shaped single photons and opens up qualitatively new opportunities in the future.