Overcoming non-Markovian dephasing in single-photon sources through postselection

We study the effects of realistic dephasing environments on a pair of solid-state single-photon sources in the context of the Hong-Ou-Mandel dip. By means of solutions for the Markovian or exact non-Markovian dephasing dynamics of the sources, we show that the resulting loss of visibility depends crucially on the timing of photon detection events. Our results demonstrate that the effective visibility can be improved via temporal postselection, and also that time-resolved interference can be a useful probe of the interaction between the emitter and its host environment. © 2009 The American Physical Society.