Status of an on-demand single-photon source using four-wave mixing in a hot vapor cell.

Fast coherent control of Rydberg excitations is essential for quantum logic gates and on-demand single-photon sources based on the Rydberg blockade as demonstrated for room-temperature rubidium atoms in a micro-cell. During our ongoing development of the next generation of this single-photon source we employ state-of-the-art 1010nm pulsed fiber amplifiers to drive a Rydberg excitation via the 6P intermediate state.

We report on the current status of the project and show time resolved observations of nanosecond pulsed four-wave mixing and GHz Rabi cycling involving the 32S Rydberg state. Our results demonstrate coherent control of the Rydberg state and the the final 6P state on the sub-nanosecond time scale.

The MHz repetition rates and significantly higher photon yields allow us to study and optimize the antibuching through elaborate pulse shaping motivated by numerical simulations. Such excitation timescales also pave the way towards fast optimal control methods for high fidelity Rydberg logic gates.