Single-photon turnstile device based on coulomb blockade of electron and hole tunneling in p-i-n heterojunctions
Ataç İmamoğlu, Y. Yamamoto · Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 1994
We describe a single-photon turnstile device that is based on a double-barrier mesoscopic p-i-n heterojunction driven by an alternating voltage source. In such a semiconductor device, Coulomb blockade and quantum confinement effects together can suppress the quantum fluctuations usually associated with electron and hole injection processes. It is therefore possible to generate heralded single-photon states without the need for high-impedance current source. The present scheme promises high- precision photon-flux state and current standards, as the repetition rate of the single-photon states and the magnitude of the junction current are determined by the frequency of the alternating voltage source.