Towards on-demand single-photon generation via active multiplexing

An on-demand single-photon source is a fundamental building block in quantum science and technology. In a proof-of-principle experiment, we demonstrate on-demand single-photon generation via actively multiplexing several heralded photons probabilistically produced from pulsed spontaneous parametric down conversions (SPDC). By utilizing a 4-photon-pair source, an active feed-forward technique and an ultrafast single photon router, we show a 4-fold enhancement of the output photon rate. Simultaneously, we maintain the indistinguishability, confirmed by Hong-Ou-Mandel interference, and the quality, confirmed by correlation measurements of the output single-photon state. Furthermore, we give numerical simulations which indicate that photons based on multiplexing of four SPDC sources can outperform the heralding based on highly advanced photon-number-resolving detectors. Our results show a route for on-demand single-photon generation and the practical realization of scalable linear optical quantum information processing.

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