August 2017
Spotlight Summary by Luca Sapienza
Optimizing single-mode collection from pointlike sources of single photons with adaptive optics
By controlling a deformable mirror with a genetic algorithm, adaptive optics allows an increase in the amount of light coupled into a single-mode fiber. The non-optimal shape of light beams and aberrations in the collection optics are often responsible for optical losses when coupling light into single-mode fibers. Improving such coupling is desirable, in particular, when sending inherently dim light beams, like those composed of single photons carrying information stored via quantum protocols, over long distances. Previously, several ways to enhance the emission properties of single-photon sources have been developed. Here, adaptive optics is used to optimize the beam profile of the emitted light: adjusting a deformable mirror with a genetic algorithm to shape the reflected light beam, the number of photons injected into a single-mode fiber is increased, thus improving the overall efficiency in the collection process.
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Article Information
Optimizing single-mode collection from pointlike sources of single photons with adaptive optics
Alexander D. Hill, David Hervas, Joseph Nash, Martin Graham, Alexander Burgers, Uttam Paudel, Duncan Steel, Christian Schneider, Martin Kamp, Sven Höfling, Jin Wang, Jiahe Lin, Wanying Zhao, and Paul G. Kwiat
Opt. Express 25(16) 18629-18642 (2017) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF