Towards a picosecond transform-limited nitrogen-vacancy based single photon source

We analyze a nitrogen-vacancy (NV-) colour centre based single photon source based on cavity Purcell enhancement of the zero phonon line and suppression of other transitions. Optimal performance conditions of the cavity-centre system are analyzed using Master equation and quantum trajectory methods. By coupling the centre strongly to a high-finesse optical cavity [Q similar to C(10(4) - 10(5)), V similar to lambda(3)] and using sub-picosecond optical excitation the system has striking performance, including effective lifetime of 70 ps, linewidth of 0.01 nm, near unit single photon emission probability and small [C( 10(-5))] multi-photon probability. (c) 2008 Optical Society of America.