Abe Naofumi, Mitsumori Yasuyoshi, Sadgrove Mark, Edamatsu Keiichi
Tohoku University, Research Institute of Electrical Communication, Sendai, 980-8577, Japan.
Sci Rep. 2017 Apr 26;7:46722. doi: 10.1038/srep46722.
Polarization is one of the fundamental properties of light, providing numerous applications in science and technology. While 'dynamically unpolarized' single-photon sources are demanded for various quantum applications, such sources have never been explored. Here we demonstrate dynamically unpolarized single-photon emission from a single [111]-oriented nitrogen- vacancy centre in diamond, in which the single-photon stream is unpolarized, exhibiting intrinsic randomness with vanishing polarization correlation between time adjacent photons. These properties not only allow true random number generation, but may also enable fundamental tests in quantum physics.
偏振是光的基本特性之一,在科学技术领域有众多应用。虽然各种量子应用需要“动态非偏振”单光子源,但此类光源从未被探索过。在此,我们展示了来自金刚石中单个[111]取向氮空位中心的动态非偏振单光子发射,其中单光子流是非偏振的,相邻时间的光子之间的偏振相关性消失,呈现出内在随机性。这些特性不仅允许生成真正的随机数,还可能实现量子物理中的基础测试。