True Single Photons at Room Temperature
Karl Otto Greulich · ChemPhysChem · 2001
Textbooks on quantum mechanics suggest that single photons, badly needed to prove models of quantum electrodynamics and quantum cryptography, can be generated by attenuated multimolecule light sources. However, this is not possible, since such sources generate wavetrains. Only recently, true single-photon sources have been made available by groups in the US, Japan and France. The Stanford room temperature source, based on single terrylene molecules, is described in some detail.