Photon sorters and QND detectors using single photon emitters
D. Witthaut, M. D. Lukin, A. S. Sørensen · Europhysics Letters (EPL) · 2012
We discuss a new method for realizing number-resolving and non-demolition photo detectors by strong coupling of light to individual single photon emitters, which act as strong optical non-linearities. As a specific application we show how these elements can be integrated into an error-proof Bell state analyzer, whose efficiency exceeds the best possible performance with linear optics even for a modest atom-field coupling. The methods are error-proof in the sense that every detection event unambiguously projects the photon state onto a Fock or Bell state and imperfections only result in reduced success probability, not in wrong results.