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Engineering the Atom-Photon Interaction pp 3–38Cite as

Cavity Induced Interfacing of Atoms and Light

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Abstract

This chapter introduces cavity-based light-matter quantum interfaces , with a single atom or ion in strong coupling to a high-finesse optical cavity . We discuss the deterministic generation of indistinguishable single photons from these systems; the atom-photon entanglement inextricably linked to this process; and the information encoding using spatio-temporal modes within these photons. Furthermore, we show how to establish a time-reversal of the aforementioned emission process to use a coupled atom-cavity system as a quantum memory. Along the line, we also discuss the performance and characterisation of cavity photons in elementary linear-optics arrangements with single beam splitters for quantum-homodyne measurements.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    \(\phi _{in}(t)\) is the probability amplitude of the running photon, with \(\int _{-\infty }^{+\infty }|\phi _{in}(t)|^2 dt =1\) and \(|\phi _{in}(t)|^2dt\) the probability of the photon arriving at the mirror within \([t, t+dt]\).

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Acknowledgments

Hereby I express my gratitude to all my colleagues and co-workers in my present and past research groups at the University of Oxford and the MPQ in Garching. It has been their engagement and enthusiasm, teamed up with the support from the European Union, the DFG and the EPSRC, which lead to the discovery of the phenomena and the development of the techniques discussed in this chapter.

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  1. Clarendon Laboratory, University of Oxford, Parks Road, Oxford, UX1 3PU, UK

    Axel Kuhn

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  1. Axel Kuhn
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Correspondence to Axel Kuhn .

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  1. Experimental Physics, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria

    Ana Predojević

  2. ICFO - Institut de Ciències Fotòniques, ICREA - Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats, Barcelona, Spain

    Morgan W. Mitchell

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Kuhn, A. (2015). Cavity Induced Interfacing of Atoms and Light. In: Predojević, A., Mitchell, M. (eds) Engineering the Atom-Photon Interaction. Nano-Optics and Nanophotonics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-19231-4_1

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