Controlled single-photon pulses from an ion in a cavity

The paper reports on the single-photon pulses produced using a single ⁴⁰Ca⁺-ion stored in a radio-frequency trap localizing the ion well in the Lamb-Dicke regime. In this case, the temporal structure of each single-photon pulse is determined exclusively by the shape of the pump pulse. The examples presented show the perfect correspondence of the measured pulse shapes with a theoretical model of single-photon emission from the system. The properties of the single photons continuously emitted from the cavity over times on the order of hours are reported and ways to further enhance the efficiency of the source are also presented.