Controlled generation of single photons from a strongly coupled atom-cavity system

We propose a new method for the generation of single photons. Our scheme wi ll lead to the emission of one photon into a single mode of the radiation f ield in response to a trigger event. This photon is emitted from an atom st rongly coupled to a high-finesse optical cavity, and the trigger is a class ical light pulse. The device combines cavity-QED with an adiabatic transfer technique. We simulate this process numerically and show that it is possib le to control the temporal behaviour of the photon emission probability by the shape and the detuning of the trigger pulse. An extension of the scheme with a reloading mechanism will allow one to emit a bit-stream of photons at a given rate.