Abstract
We report on the realization of an all-optical transistor by mapping gate and source photons into strongly interacting Rydberg excitations with different principal quantum numbers in an ultracold atomic ensemble. We obtain a record switch contrast of 40% for a coherent gate input with mean photon number one and demonstrate attenuation of source transmission by over ten photons with a single gate photon. We use our optical transistor to demonstrate the nondestructive detection of a single Rydberg atom with a fidelity of 0.72(4).
- Received 27 March 2014
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.113.053601
© 2014 American Physical Society
Viewpoint
Optical Transistor Flips On with One Photon
Published 28 July 2014
Researchers have used interactions between highly excited atoms to make an optical transistor that can be activated by a single photon.
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