https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/202125506002
Indistinguishable Photons from a Single Molecule under Pulsed Excitation
1 National Institute of Optics (CNR-INO), Largo Enrico Fermi 6, Firenze, 50125, Italy
2 European Laboratory for Non-Linear Spectroscopy (LENS), Via Nello Carrara 1, Sesto, F.no 50019, Italy
3 Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia, Universita degli Studi di Firenze, Via G. Sansone 1, Sesto, F.no 50019, Italy
* e-mail: pietroernesto.lombardi@ino.cnr.it
** e-mail: toninelli@lens.unifi.it
Published online: 18 November 2021
Quantum light sources are crucial for the future of quantum photonic technologies and, among them, single photons on-demand are key resources in quantum communications and information processing. Ideal quantum emitters providing indistinguishable photons in a clocked manner, negligible decoherence and spectral diffusion, and with potential for scalability are today still a major challenge. We report on photostable and indistinguishable single photon emission from dibenzoterrylene molecules isolated in anthracene nanocrystals (DBT:Ac NCs) at 3K. The visibility of two-photon interference is preserved even when they are separated more than thirty times the excited-state lifetime, or ten fluorescence cycles. One of the advantages of organic molecules is the low-cost mass production of nominally identical emitters, that also allow for on-chip integration. These aspects combined with high spectral stability and coherence make them promising for applications and future quantum technologies.
© The Authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2021
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
