Active Temporal Multiplexing of Indistinguishable Heralded Single Photons

Abstract: It is a fundamental challenge in quantum optics to deterministically generate indistinguishable single photons through non-deterministic nonlinear optical processes, due to the intrinsic coupling of single- and multi-photon generation probabilities in these processes. Actively multiplexing photons generated in many temporal modes can decouple these probabilities, but key issues are to minimize resource requirements to allow scalability, and to ensure indistinguishability of the generated photons. We demonstrate the multiplexing of photons from four temporal modes solely using fiber-integrated optics and off-the-shelf electronic circuits. We show a 100% enhancement to the single photon output probability without introducing additional multi-photon noise. Photon indistinguishability is confirmed by a four-fold Hong-Ou-Mandel quantum interference with a 91% visibility. Our demonstration paves the way for scalable multiplexing of many non-deterministic photon sources to a single near-deterministic source, which will be of benefit to future quantum photonic technologies.