Neutral atoms are ideal objects for the deterministic processing of quantum information. Entanglement operations have been carried out by photon exchange(1) or controlled collisions(2), and atom - photon interfaces have been realized with single atoms in free space(3,4) or strongly coupled to an optical cavity(5,6). A long-standing challenge with neutral atoms, however, is to overcome the limited observation time. Without exception, quantum effects appeared only after ensemble averaging. Here, we report on a single-photon source with one, and only one, atom quasi-permanently coupled to a high-finesse cavity. 'Quasi-permanent' refers to our ability to keep the atom long enough to, first, quantify the photon-emission statistics and, second, guarantee the subsequent performance as a single-photon server delivering up to 300,000 photons for up to 30 s. This is achieved by a unique combination of single-photon generation and atom cooling(7-9). Our scheme brings deterministic protocols of quantum information science with light and matter(10-16) closer to realization.
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