Heralded single photon sources: a route towards quantum communication technology and photon standards

Abstract

Abstract. Single photon counting, based on single photon sources and detectors, is a key ingredient for certain applications aiming at new quantum information technologies. Quantum cryptography, quantum radiometry, distributed quantum computing, as well as adjacent technologies such as biomedical and astronomical imaging, and low power classical communication also rely on single-photon technology. This paper reviews the present status of single photon sources and related counting measurement techniques, based on correlated (or heralded) photons in parametric down-conversion, and their possible impact on the above mentioned technologies, as well as an assessment for photon standards in the future. PACS

Invited Review Article: Single-photon sources and detectors

“…We have attempted to make the review accessible to those who are new to the field, while at the same time serving as a valuable reference to experts. More specific reviews focused on quantum-metrology applications, 79 quantuminformation applications, 81 fluorescence lifetime determination, 82 quantum-dot/photonic-crystal sources, 83 singleemitter sources, 84 cavity-based sources, 85 single-photon sources generally, 86,87 and solid-state single-photon detectors 88 may also be of interest to the reader.…”

Quantum photonics at telecom wavelengths based on lithium niobate waveguides

“…A P 1 ≈ 0.37 was measured with a g (2) (0) = 0.08 for a heralding rate on the order of 100 kHz. An interesting review of heralded single photon sources for quantum communication technology is available in [163] for an exhaustive list of realizations and it is worth mentioning an original work from a collaboration between US and Italian groups for developing an extremely low-noise heralded single-photon source [164] exploiting a PPLN/W.…”

On‐chip single photon sources using planar photonic crystals and single quantum dots

“…Therefore, there may be no photons, several photons, or many photons, since the photon number generated is subject to Poissonian statistics; this can be problematic for a number of applications such as quantum cryptography because of possible photon number-splitting attacks ("eavesdropping") [6,7]. Another more practical approach for obtaining single photons is to exploit spontaneous parametric down conversion in nonlinear crystals [8], where higher-frequency pump photons incident on a nonlinear crystal are occasionally split into a pair of lower-frequency photons; one of these photons (the "heralding" photon) is used to herald the arrival of the second photon ("heralded" photon), and thus the second photon can be well isolated and manipulated. However, there is a contradiction problem here: a larger conversion rate is usually accompanied with a greater probability of emitting two photons, while a lower conversion rate will lead to the random production of single photons (although the probability of two photon emission can be effectively reduced).…”