Temporal shaping of single-photon pulses
Résumé
The ability to control the temporal shape of single-photon pulses is highly desirable in quantum information processing. For instance, it has been shown that Gaussian pulses are best suited for linear optics quantum computing1. By mimicking the time-reversal of a spontaneous emission event, it also allows to optimize the absorption of the prepared photons by a quantum emitter. In this work we investigate the potential of using fast modifications of the detuning between an atomic system and a cavity mode during photon emission to reach this goal. We compare two approaches consisting of varying the emitter or cavity frequency. The latter, achievable by a fast modification of the refractive index of a solid state cavity, will be shown to have negligible influence on the photon spectrum. It allows to create Gaussian pulses interacting with a fidelity to the target photons of 99%, as well as time-reversed photons absorbed by an atom in a cavity with a probability of 93%.