Friday, Apr 14, 2006

Dr. Alfred B. U'Ren

Department of Optics CICESE [Ensenada Institute for Scientific Research and Higher Education]

 "Conditional preparation of pure, ultrashort single photon wavepackets"

2:00 pm in room P-148

Abstract: Single photon states are the most fundamental building blocks of light. Nevertheless, until recently the generation of isolated single photons has been beyond our reach. One of the most established tools for probing the quantum nature of light is the process of parametric downconversion where pairs of so-called quantum-entangled photons are emitted. Recently it has been demonstrated that by detecting one of the photons in a given pair, its sibling can be "heralded", resulting in a practical single photon source. I will discuss some related experiments, as well as theoretical refinements including the possibility of emitting single photons described by a femto-second duration wavepacket