Numerical analyses of emission of a single-photon pulse based on single-atom cavity quantum electrodynamics

TL;DR

This paper numerically analyzes a single-photon source based on a strongly coupled atom-cavity system, focusing on efficiency, emission duration fluctuation, and emission timing, using master equation simulations of adiabatic processes.

Contribution

It provides a detailed numerical simulation of single-photon emission in a three-level atom-cavity system, highlighting physical properties and bounds of emission characteristics.

Findings

Efficiency closely approximated by a specific function

Upper bound of emission duration fluctuation identified

Analysis of emission timing relative to trigger pulse peak

Abstract

We numerically investigate an on-demand single-photon source, which is implemented with a strongly coupled atom-cavity system, proposed by Kuhn {\it et al}., Appl. Phys. B \textbf{69}, 373 (1999). In the scheme of Kuhn {\it et al}., a $\Lambda$-type three-level atom is captured in a single-mode optical cavity. Considering the three atomic levels, the ground state $u$, the first excited state $g$ accompanying the cavity mode, and the second excited state $e$, in the $\Lambda$-configuration, we assume that a classical field and a quantized cavity field lead to the transition between $u$ and $e$ and that between $e$ and $g$, respectively. The classical light pulse rising sufficiently slowly triggers an adiabatic process of the system and lets a single photon of the cavity mode emerge. We simulate this adiabatic evolution and transmission of the single photon through an imperfect mirror of the cavity using the master equation. We concentrate on examining physical properties of the efficiency of single-photon generation, the fluctuation of the duration of the photon emission, and the time of the emission measured from a peak of the trigger pulse. We find a function that approximates to the efficiency closely and the upper bound of the fluctuation of the duration.