Deterministic Interaction of Ions and Photons
Dr. Wolfgang Lange (Max-Planck-Institut für Quantenoptik, Garching)

A single trapped calcium-ion, strongly localized in a high-finesse cavity tuned close to resonance with an optical transition of the ion, allows us to achieve continuous and completely deterministic interaction of ion and field. By using ultra-low loss mirrors, we can reach the strong-coupling regime of cavity-QED with a fully controlled interaction strength and under cw-conditions. An application we presently investigate is the controlled generation of single-photon pulses with high efficiency. The well-defined interaction of ions and photons is also relevant for quantum computation, since the cavity field can mediate a coherent interaction between neighboring ions in a linear chain.