We propose a scheme for realizing a quantum nondemolition (QND) measurement of a small number of optical photons. Our scheme has two stages: First, we couple a propagating light pulse with fixed photon number to a trapped cold atomic gas within a cavity, such that the pulse is stored within a collective polariton mode. Second, a small-photon-number measurement is engineered by monitoring the cavity-transmission spectrum. Since the polariton mode profile is preserved during the process of detecting the spectrum, photon-number QND measurements could be achieved by retrieving the light pulse from the polariton mode. We also discuss a method which uses QND measurements to generate small-photon Fock states.

• Received 2 July 2014

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.90.055801