Narrow-band single photons represent an important resource for quantum memories due to their efficient interaction with atomic resonances. In this Letter, we report on the generation of photons with 3 MHz linewidth by cavity-enhanced parametric down-conversion and demonstrate direct proof of their single-photon character by detection of heralding idler photons. Compared to a Poissonian source, a suppression of higher-order photon numbers by nearly 2 orders of magnitude could be achieved. Moreover, the brightness of our source exceeds previous realizations by more than a factor of 100.
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We present a full triple-coincidence analysis of photon-pair states generated by spontaneous parametric down-conversion. By increasing the coherence time of the source with the help of an intracavity setup, our measurements are not spoiled by detection time jitter. Signal-idler, but also thermal signal-signal, correlations are clearly resolved in this regime. Via introduction of an artificial coincidence window, we discuss in detail the transition to the previously studied cases where typically no single-arm correlation is observed. We investigate the heralded antibunching characteristics to show that in our system further studies of continuously generated photon states, possibly higher-photon-number entangled states, can be performed with respect to their (non)applicability in quantum information tasks.
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