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Updated: Mar 11, 2026

High Resolution Phonon-assisted Quasi-resonance Fluorescence Spectroscopy
Published on: June 28, 2016
Time-resolved scattering of a single photon by a single atom
Victor Leong1,2, Mathias Alexander Seidler1, Matthias Steiner1,2
1Centre for Quantum Technologies, National University of Singapore, 3 Science Drive 2, Singapore 117543, Singapore.
Abstract:
Scattering of light by matter has been studied extensively in the past. Yet, the most fundamental process, the scattering of a single photon by a single atom, is largely unexplored. One prominent prediction of quantum optics is the deterministic absorption of a travelling photon by a single atom, provided the photon waveform matches spatially and temporally the time-reversed version of a spontaneously emitted photon. Here we experimentally address this prediction and investigate the influence of the photon's temporal profile on the scattering dynamics using a single trapped atom and heralded single photons. In a time-resolved measurement of atomic excitation we find a 56(11)% increase of the peak excitation by photons with an exponentially rising profile compared with a decaying one. However, the overall scattering probability remains unchanged within the experimental uncertainties. Our results demonstrate that envelope tailoring of single photons enables precise control of the photon-atom interaction.
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