Photon-number entanglement generated by sequential excitation of a two-level atom

Entanglement and spontaneous emission are fundamental quantum phenomena that drive many applications of quantum physics. During the spontaneous emission of light from an excited two-level atom, the atom briefly becomes entangled with the photonic field. Here we show that this natural process can be...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Wein, Stephen C., Loredo, Juan C., Maffei, Maria, Hilaire, Paul, Harouri, Abdelmounaim, Somaschi, Niccolo, Lemaître, Aristide, Sagnes, Isabelle, Lanco, Loïc, Krebs, Olivier, Auffèves, Alexia, Simon, Christoph, Senellart, Pascale, Antón Solanas, Carlos
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2022
País:España
Institución:Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Repositorio:Biblos-e Archivo. Repositorio Institucional de la UAM
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:repositorio.uam.es:10486/715726
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10486/715726
https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41566-022-00979-z
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Quantum phenomena
Atom
Photonic field
Photon number
Física
Descripción
Sumario:Entanglement and spontaneous emission are fundamental quantum phenomena that drive many applications of quantum physics. During the spontaneous emission of light from an excited two-level atom, the atom briefly becomes entangled with the photonic field. Here we show that this natural process can be used to produce photon-number entangled states of light distributed in time. By exciting a quantum dot—an artificial two-level atom—with two sequential π-pulses, we generate a photon-number Bell state. We characterize this state using time-resolved intensity and phase correlation measurements. Furthermore, we theoretically show that applying longer sequences of pulses to a two-level atom can produce a series of multi-temporal mode entangled states with properties intrinsically related to the Fibonacci sequence. Our results on photon-number entanglement can be further exploited to generate new states of quantum light with applications in quantum technologies