Efficient room-temperature source of polarized single photons
First Claim
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1. A room-temperature source of polarized single photons, the source comprising:
- a substrate;
a single light-emitting dye molecule or other, single fluorescence emitter, said single light-emitting dye molecule or other, single fluorescence emitter exhibiting antibunching characteristics; and
a planar aligned liquid crystal host, disposed on the substrate, the light-emitting dye or other fluorescence emitter being embedded in the host, for aligning molecules of the light-emitting dye or other fluorescence emitters along a preferred direction.
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Abstract
An efficient technique for producing deterministically polarized single photons uses liquid-crystal hosts of either monomeric or oligomeric/polymeric form to preferentially align the single emitters for maximum excitation efficiency. Deterministic molecular alignment also provides deterministically polarized output photons; using planar-aligned cholesteric liquid crystal hosts as 1-D photonic-band-gap microcavities tunable to the emitter fluorescence band to increase source efficiency, using liquid crystal technology to prevent emitter bleaching. Emitters comprise soluble dyes, inorganic nanocrystals or trivalent rare-earth chelates.
25 Citations
128 Claims
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1. A room-temperature source of polarized single photons, the source comprising:
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a substrate; a single light-emitting dye molecule or other, single fluorescence emitter, said single light-emitting dye molecule or other, single fluorescence emitter exhibiting antibunching characteristics; and a planar aligned liquid crystal host, disposed on the substrate, the light-emitting dye or other fluorescence emitter being embedded in the host, for aligning molecules of the light-emitting dye or other fluorescence emitters along a preferred direction. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 127, 128)
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24. A method for preparing a room-temperature source of single photons, the method comprising:
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(a) preparing a substrate; (b) preparing a planar aligned liquid crystal host, disposed on the substrate, for aligning single molecules of a light-emitting dye or other single fluorescence emitter along a preferred direction; and (c) embedding the light-emitting single dye molecules or other single fluorescence emitters in the host such that light-emitting single dye molecules or other single fluorescence emitters exhibit antibunching characteristics. - View Dependent Claims (25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63)
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64. A device for emitting polarized single photons, the device comprising:
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a photon source comprising;
two substrates;
a single molecule of light-emitting dye or other single fluorescence emitter; and
a planar aligned liquid crystal host, disposed between the substrates, the light-emitting dye or other fluorescence emitter being embedded in the host, for aligning molecules of the light-emitting dye or of the other fluorescence emitter along a preferred direction;a light source of preferred polarization state for causing excitation light to be incident on a portion of the photon source to excite one single emitter at a time to emit the polarized single photons; means for collecting emitted photons in a controlled manner; and means for discriminating excitation light from emitted light. - View Dependent Claims (65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94)
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95. A method for producing polarized single photons, the method comprising:
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(a) providing a source which comprises a substrate, single molecules of a light-emitting dye or other single fluorescent emitters and a planar aligned liquid crystal host, disposed on the substrate, the light-emitting dye or other fluorescence emitter being embedded in the host, for aligning molecules of the light-emitting dye or the other fluorescence emitter along a preferred direction; (b) providing a light source for causing polarized excitation light to be incident on a portion of the photon source to excite, at any one time, one and only one dye molecule or other fluorescence emitter to emit the polarized single photons; and (c) discriminating the emitted light from the excitation light. - View Dependent Claims (96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126)
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Specification