Proposal for low-noise heralded single photons from cascaded downconversion

Heralded single photon sources are often implemented using spontaneous parametric downconversion, but their quality can be restricted by optical loss, double pair emission and detector dark counts. Here, we propose a scheme using cascaded downconversion that would improve the performance of such sources by providing a second trigger signal to herald the presence of a single photon, thereby reducing the effects of detector dark counts. Our calculations show that for a setup with fixed detectors, an improved heralded second-order correlation function g⁽²⁾ can be achieved with cascaded downconversion given sufficient efficiency for the second downconversion, even for equal single-photon production rates. Furthermore, the minimal g⁽²⁾ value is unchanged for a large range in pump beam intensity. These results are interesting for applications where achieving low, stable values of g⁽²⁾ is of primary importance.