Generating Even-Photon State via Resonant Interaction Between Ladder-Type Three-Level Atoms with a Single-Mode Field

A scheme is presented to generate even-photon state based on resonant interaction between ladder-type three-level atoms with a single-mode field. In the scheme, a sequence of suitably prepared ladder-type three-level atoms are orderly sent through a single-mode cavity initially in vacuum state. The detection of all the atoms in the ground states collapses the cavity to the desired state. The scheme is based on the resonant interaction of atoms with the cavity, and thus the required interaction time can be greatly shortened. This is important in view of decoherence.