Issue Eur. Phys. J. D Volume 18, Number 2, February 2002 Special Issue on Quantum interference and cryptographic keys: novel physics and advancing technologies (QUICK) Page(s) 191 - 196 DOI 10.1140/epjd/e20020023

Eur. Phys. J. D 18, 191-196 (2002)
DOI: 10.1140/epjd/e20020023

Room temperature stable single-photon source

A. Beveratos¹, S. Kühn¹, R. Brouri¹, T. Gacoin², J.-P. Poizat¹ and P. Grangier<sup>1

1</sup>  Laboratoire Charles Fabry de l'Institut d'Optique (UMR 8501 du CNRS) , B.P. 147, 91403 Orsay Cedex, France
²  Laboratoire de Physique de la matière condensée, École polytechnique, 91128 Palaiseau, France

alexios.beveratos@iota.u-psud.fr
jean-philippe.poizat@iota.u-psud.fr

(Received 1st August 2001 and Received in final form 2 October 2001)

Abstract
We report on the realization of a stable solid state room temperature source for single photons. It is based on the fluorescence of a single nitrogen-vacancy (NV) color center in a diamond nanocrystal. Antibunching has been observed in the fluorescence light under both continuous and pulsed excitation. Our source delivers s ^-1 single-photon pulses at an excitation repetition rate of 10 MHz. The number of two-photon pulses is reduced by a factor of five compared to strongly attenuated coherent sources.

PACS
42.50.Dv - Nonclassical field states; squeezed, antibunched, and sub-Poissonian states; operational definitions of the phase of the field; phase measurements .
03.67.-a - Quantum information.
78.67.-n - Optical properties of nanoscale materials and structures.


© EDP Sciences, Società Italiana di Fisica, Springer-Verlag 2002

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