Room-temperature Rydberg single-photon source

We present an optimal protocol to implement a room-temperature Rydberg single-photon source within an experimental setup based on micro cells filled with thermal vapor. The optimization of a pulsed four wave mixing scheme allows us to double the effective Rydberg blockade radius as compared to a simple Gaussian pulse scheme, releasing some of the constraints on the geometry of the micro cells. The performance of the optimized protocol is improved by about 70% with respect to the standard protocol. © 2013 American Physical Society.