Performance of a temporally multiplexed single photon source with imperfect devices

Abstract

Scalable photonic quantum technologies require highly efficient sources of single photons on demand. Although much progress has been done in the field within the last decade, the requirements impose stringent conditions on the efficiency of such devices. One of the most promising approaches is to multiplex a single or several heralded photon sources into temporal modes. In this work, we analyze a specific proposal to synchronize photons from a continuous source with an external reference clock using imperfect optical switches, which necessarily degrade the ideal behavior of the devised arrangement. The performance of the source as a sub-Poissonian light emitter is studied taking into account losses in the multiplexing arrangement, detector efficiency and dark counts. We estimate a fivefold increase in the single-photon probability achieved for 0.5 dB loss switches.