Steady-State Emission of Quantum-Correlated Light in the Telecom Band from a Single Atom

TL;DR

This paper presents a method for generating steady-state, quantum-correlated telecom-band light from a single atom using cavity QED, with potential applications in quantum communication.

Contribution

It introduces a scheme to produce continuous quantum-correlated telecom photons from a single atom, leveraging cavity coupling and laser tuning, which is a novel approach.

Findings

Resonant cavity coupling enhances emission rate.

The scheme maintains antibunched photon statistics.

Quantum correlations are introduced between cavity modes.

Abstract

We propose and investigate a scheme for the steady-state emission of quantum-correlated, telecom-band light from a single multilevel atom. By appropriately tuning the frequency of a pair of lasers, a two-photon transition is continually driven to an atomic excited state that emits photons at the desired wavelength. We show that resonantly coupling a cavity mode to the telecom transition can enhance the rate of emission while retaining the antibunched counting statistics that are characteristic of atomic light sources. We also explore coupling a second, independent cavity mode to the atom, which increases the telecom emission rate and introduces quantum correlations between the cavity modes. A model for the hyperfine structure of a single cesium atom is then described and numerically integrated to demonstrate the viability of implementing the scheme with a modern cavity QED system.