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Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 083601 (2009) [4 pages]

Efficient Routing of Single Photons by One Atom and a Microtoroidal Cavity

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Takao Aoki1,*, A. S. Parkins1,†, D. J. Alton1, C. A. Regal1, Barak Dayan1,‡, E. Ostby2, K. J. Vahala2, and H. J. Kimble1
1Norman Bridge Laboratory of Physics 12-33, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125, USA
2T. J. Watson Laboratory of Applied Physics, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125, USA

Received 8 October 2008; published 27 February 2009

Single photons from a coherent input are efficiently redirected to a separate output by way of a fiber-coupled microtoroidal cavity interacting with individual cesium atoms. By operating in an overcoupled regime for the input-output to a tapered fiber, our system functions as a quantum router with high efficiency for photon sorting. Single photons are reflected and excess photons transmitted, as confirmed by observations of photon antibunching (bunching) for the reflected (transmitted) light. Our photon router is robust against large variations of atomic position and input power, with the observed photon antibunching persisting for intracavity photon number 0.03≲n̅ ≲0.7.

© 2009 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.102.083601
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.102.083601
PACS:
42.50.Pq, 03.67.−a, 42.50.Ct, 42.60.Da

*Permanent addresses: Department of Physics, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan, and PRESTO, Japan Science and Technology Agency, Saitama, Japan.

†Department of Physics, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand.

‡Department of Chemical Physics, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel.

 
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