  Reliable encoding of information in quantum systems is crucial to all
approaches to quantum information processing or communication. This applies in
particular to photons used in linear optics quantum computing (LOQC), which is
scalable provided a deterministic single-photon emission and preparation is
available. Here, we show that narrowband photons deterministically emitted from
an atom-cavity system fulfill these requirements. Within their 500 ns coherence
time, we demonstrate a subdivision into d time bins of various amplitudes and
phases, which we use for encoding arbitrary qu-d-its. The latter is done
deterministically with a fidelity >95% for qubits, verified using a newly
developed time-resolved quantum-homodyne method.

Quantum Physics