TY - JOUR
T1 - Experimental demonstration of a predictable single photon source with variable photon flux
AU - Vaigu, Aigar
AU - Porrovecchio, Geiland
AU - Chu, Xiao-Liu
AU - Lindner, Sarah
AU - Smid, Marek
AU - Manninen, Albert
AU - Becher, Christoph
AU - Sandoghdar, Vahid
AU - Götzinger, Stephan
AU - Ikonen, Erkki
PY - 2017/3/21
Y1 - 2017/3/21
N2 - We present a predictable single-photon source (SPS) based
on a silicon vacancy centre in nanodiamond which is
optically excited by a pulsed laser. At an excitation
rate of 70 MHz the source delivers a photon flux large
enough to be measured by a low optical flux detector
(LOFD). The directly measured photon flux constitutes an
absolute reference. By changing the repetition rate of
the pulsed laser, we are able to change the photon flux
of our SPS in a controllable way which in turn can act as
a reference. The advantage of our method is that it does
not require precise knowledge of the source efficiency,
but the source is calibrated by the LOFD and can be used
for detector responsivity characterizations at the
few-photon level.
AB - We present a predictable single-photon source (SPS) based
on a silicon vacancy centre in nanodiamond which is
optically excited by a pulsed laser. At an excitation
rate of 70 MHz the source delivers a photon flux large
enough to be measured by a low optical flux detector
(LOFD). The directly measured photon flux constitutes an
absolute reference. By changing the repetition rate of
the pulsed laser, we are able to change the photon flux
of our SPS in a controllable way which in turn can act as
a reference. The advantage of our method is that it does
not require precise knowledge of the source efficiency,
but the source is calibrated by the LOFD and can be used
for detector responsivity characterizations at the
few-photon level.
KW - low optical flux detector
KW - photon on demand
KW - silicon vacancy centrer
KW - single photon metrology
KW - single photon sources
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85017126915&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1088/1681-7575/aa5ba2
DO - 10.1088/1681-7575/aa5ba2
M3 - Article
VL - 54
SP - 218
EP - 223
JO - Metrologia
JF - Metrologia
SN - 0026-1394
IS - 2
ER -