Abstract:
A source of single rf photons based on a micromaser with pumping atoms without population inversion is considered. Inversion is absent because atoms in the upper and lower states alternately enter the cavity. The generation process is a continuous maintenance of the field inside the cavity in such a state that the number of photons in the pumped mode is equal to one. The field can be extracted from the cavity in a controlled manner so that the pump atoms stop transmitting energy to the cavity during the photon detection process. This effect allows reaching significant reduction of the probability of detecting correlated photon pairs and using the source in quantum computing and cryptography. In addition, fluctuations in the squeezed state of the rf field that are due to disordered alternation of atoms in the beam are simulated.