Arbitrary control of the temporal waveform of photons during spontaneous emission

• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2511.23462v1
• Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2025 18:54:08 GMT
• Title: Arbitrary control of the temporal waveform of photons during spontaneous emission
• Authors: Carl Thomas, Rebecca Munk, Boris Blinov,
• Abstract summary: Control of the temporal waveform and Fock state statistics of photons produced during spontaneous emission from single quantum emitters provides a crucial tool in the establishment of hybrid quantum systems.<n>We describe a method to generate photons of any temporal waveform from emitters of any lifetime.
• Score: 0.0
• License: http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/
• Abstract: Control of the temporal waveform and Fock state statistics of photons produced during spontaneous emission from single quantum emitters provides a crucial tool in the establishment of hybrid quantum systems, optimal state transfer and interferometric stability of network architectures based on flying qubits. We describe a method to generate photons of any temporal waveform from emitters of any lifetime. Our broadly applicable approach has only two requirements for a candidate qudit: (1) control of the phase-parity and (2) modulation of the amplitude of a field coupling a ground state to an excited manifold which produces a photon during relaxation. We detail how to find optimal excitation pulse shapes, both numerically and experimentally, by employing variational algorithms to feedback on atomic populations. Additionally, we develop Quantum Monte Carlo based tools to determine emission statistics and establish techniques for optimal post-selection to ensure maximum fidelity of photon generation protocols. We situate our work in the context of other prior research on bespoke single photon sources and networking including post-emission pulse shaping, temporal gating and cavity-based methods. In comparison, our free-space process has greater flexibility in producing any waveform, requires less infrastructure and can be readily applied across a wide domain of emitters of any frequency or lifetime. We demonstrate temporal waveform shaping in $^{174}$Yb$^+$ trapped ions. Using feedforward validation of photon waveforms, we estimate an achievable process fidelity of at least $\approx$0.996.

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