Fiber-based source of photon pairs at telecom band with high temporal coherence and brightness for quantum information processing

We experimentally demonstrate a bright pulsed source of correlated photon pairs at the 1550 nm telecom band by pumping 300 m dispersion-shifted fiber with a 4 ps pulse train. We investigate the coherence property of the source by measuring the second-order intensity correlation function g(2) of individual signal (idler) photons. A preliminary Hong-Ou-Mandel-type two-photon interference experiment with two such sources confirms the high temporal and spatial coherence of the source. The source is suitable for multiphoton quantum interference of independent sources, which is required in quantum information processing.     

Multiplexing photons with a binary division strategy

We present a scheme to produce clock-synchronized photons from a single parametric downconversion source with a binary division strategy. The time difference between a clock and detections of the herald photons determines the amount of delay that must be imposed to a photon by actively switching different temporal segments, so that all photons emerge from the output with their wavepackets temporally synchronized with the temporal reference. The operation is performed using a binary division configuration which minimizes the passages through switches. Finally, we extend this scheme to the production of many synchronized photons and find expressions for the optimal amount of correction stages as a function of the pair generation rate and the target coherence time. Our results show that, for the generation of this heralded single-photon per output state at an optimized input photon flux, the output rate of our scheme scales essentially with the reciprocal of the target output photon number. With current technology, rates of up to 10⁴ synchronized pairs per second could be observed with only 7 correction stages.     

Signatures of nonlocality in the first-order coherence of scattered light

The spatial coherence of an atomic wavepacket can be detected in scattered photons, even when the center-of-mass motion is in the quantum coherent superposition of two distant, nonoverlapping wavepackets. Spatial coherence manifests itself in the power spectrum of the emitted photons, whose spectral components can exhibit interference fringes as a function of the emission angle. The contrast and the phase of this interference pattern provide information about the quantum state of the center of mass of the scattering atom.     

Quantum beat of two single photons

The interference of two single photons impinging on a beam splitter is measured in a time-resolved manner. Using long photons of different frequencies emitted from an atom-cavity system, a quantum beat with a visibility close to 100% is observed in the correlation between the photodetections at the output ports of the beam splitter. The time dependence of the beat amplitude reflects the coherence properties of the photons. Most remarkably, simultaneous photodetections are never observed, so that a temporal filter allows one to obtain perfect two-photon coalescence even for nonperfect photons.     

Temporal coherence of photons emitted by single nitrogen-vacancy defect centers in diamond using optical Rabi-oscillations

Photon interference among distant quantum emitters is a promising method to generate large scale quantum networks. Interference is best achieved when photons show long coherence times. For the nitrogen-vacancy defect center in diamond we measure the coherence times of photons via optically induced Rabi oscillations. Experiments reveal a close to Fourier-transform (i.e., lifetime) limited width of photons emitted even when averaged over minutes. The projected contrast of two-photon interference (0.8) is high enough to envisage applications in quantum information processing. We report 12 and 7.8 ns excited state lifetimes depending on the spin state of the defect.     

多光子相长干涉解释光子的广义聚束效应

光的聚束效应的发现是量子光学的重要里程碑.对其进行合理解释的努力,促进了量子光学理论与技术的大发展,使量子光学迅速发展和完善起来.现在一般认为,光场二阶相干所体现的聚束效应的物理本质是双光子干涉.本文发现,在高阶相干中有类似的广义聚束效应,这种广义聚束效应也可以用光子相长干涉解释.而且在一些典型的光路中,Ⅳ个光子参与的干涉,可以使这种广义聚束效应的增强因子达到N!.     

Generation of narrow-band hyperentangled nondegenerate paired photons

We report the generation of nondegenerate narrow-bandwidth paired photons with time-frequency and polarization entanglements from laser cooled atoms. We observe the two-photon interference caused by Rabi splitting with a coherence time of about 30 ns and a visibility of 81.8% which verifies the time-frequency entanglement of the paired photons. The polarization entanglement is confirmed by polarization correlation measurements which exhibit a visibility of 89.5% and characterized by quantum-state tomography with a fidelity of 90.8%. Taking into account the transmission losses and duty cycle, we estimate that the system generates hyperentangled paired photons into opposing single-mode fibers at a rate of 320 pairs per second.     

Ghost interference with partially coherent radiation

Ghost interference with partially coherent radiation sources is studied using optical coherence theory. The visibility of the ghost interference fringes is strongly influenced by the transverse size and transverse coherence width of the source. An increase of the transverse source size leads to a decrease of the fringes' visibility. An increase of the transverse coherence results in an increase of the visibility. The difference between ghost interference formed with entangled photon pairs and with partially coherent light is discussed.     

Effects of Spontaneously Generated Coherence on Intensity-Intensity Correlation in a Driven Y-Type Atom

In this paper, we investigate the spontaneously generated coherence (SGC) effects on the fluorescence fields intensity-intensity correlation in a resonant driven four-level Y-type atomic system. By using a strong control field, in the absense of SGC effects, strong correlation and anticorrelation
fluorescence photons can be produced from two ladder transitions in this system respectively. However, in the presence of SGC effects, the fluorescence fields correlation properties are reversed for the two transitions. The above phenomena can be traced to the quantum destructive or constructive interference in terms of dressed states.     

Quantum teleportation with a quantum dot single photon source

We report the experimental demonstration of a quantum teleportation protocol with a semiconductor single photon source. Two qubits, a target and an ancilla, each defined by a single photon occupying two optical modes (dual-rail qubit), were generated independently by the single photon source. Upon measurement of two modes from different qubits and postselection, the state of the two remaining modes was found to reproduce the state of the target qubit. In particular, the coherence between the target qubit modes was transferred to the output modes to a large extent. The observed fidelity is 80%, in agreement with the residual distinguishability between consecutive photons from the source. An improved version of this teleportation scheme using more ancillas is the building block of the recent Knill, Laflamme, and Milburn proposal for efficient linear optics quantum computation.     

Interference and correlation of two independent photons

Two independent photons, produced through the spontaneous emission of two separate emitters subject to uncorrelated dephasing processes, can display two-photon interference (i.e. coalescence into a two-photon state) when they are incident simultaneously on a beamsplitter, in a manner analogous to that of twin photons produced through degenerate parametric fluorescence. The presence of dephasing processes, however, reduces the interference contrast (i.e. the probability of coalescence), by the ratio of the coherence time to the lifetime of the emitter. Received 9 September 2002 Published online 17 December 2002 RID="a" ID="a"e-mail: izo.abram@lpn.cnrs.fr     

On the origin of laser coherence

It is shown that the light created in the process of the “emission of many photons by many atoms”, as treated recently by Ernst and Stehle, has extreme coherence properties. In particular, it leads to spatial interference effects between radiation from two distinct sources of this type. Under certain conditions this interference even can become optimal in the sense that the intensity minima vanish. Furthermore, in the sense of the definition of Glauber, the light field produced in this process is practically coherent to the ordern～N, whereN is the the number of emitted photons. One arrives at a natural and simple interpretation of two-laser interference experiments of Magyar and Mandel, and Pfleegor and Mandel, if one assumes that the mentioned process constitutes the primary creation mechanism of laser light. It is shown that and how the physically important features of laser activity can be understood on the base of this assumption.     

Suppression of dephasing due to a trapping potential and atom-atom interactions in a trapped-condensate interferometer

We propose and demonstrate a novel trapped-condensate interferometer using optical Bragg diffractions in a harmonic magnetic potential, which can realize a long coherence time with low dephasing. Dephasing of wave packets due to the magnetic potential is canceled by setting the interrogation time equal to the oscillation period of the harmonic potential. The harmonic potential also helps to suppress dephasing due to condensate atom-atom interactions. An interference signal with a fringe contrast of 30% is observed at an interrogation time of 58 ms. For a longer interrogation time about 100 ms, the spatial coherence of the condensate is still maintained with low dephasing, although the interference fringe is washed out by external vibrational noise.     

Optical-fiber source of polarization-entangled photons in the 1550 nm telecom band

We present a fiber-based source of polarization-entangled photons that is well suited for quantum communication applications in the 1550 nm band of standard fiber-optic telecommunications. Polarization entanglement is created by pumping a nonlinear-fiber Sagnac interferometer with two time-delayed orthogonally polarized pump pulses and subsequently removing the time distinguishability by passing the parametrically scattered signal and idler photon pairs through a piece of birefringent fiber. Coincidence detection of the signal and idler photons yields biphoton interference with visibility greater than 90%, while no interference is observed in direct detection of either signal or idler photons. All four Bell states can be prepared with our setup and we demonstrate violations of the Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt form of Bell's inequality by up to 10 standard deviations of measurement uncertainty.     

Effects of thermal light source properties in two-photon subwavelength coincidence interference experiments

We perform two-photon coincidence subwavelength interference experiments from double slit using independent photons obtained from a pseudo-thermal light source produced by (i) slowly rotating ground glass (RGG) with turbid solution of a different density and (ii) RGG. The turbid solution is water solution containing 3 μm diameter polystyrene microspheres. It is found that the visibility of the obtained interference pattern decreases in first experiment with increasing the density of the turbid solution from N = 10¹⁰ spheres m⁻³ to N = 10¹⁴ spheres m⁻³. However, the results are reported here for the density of N = 10¹⁴ spheres m⁻³. The visibility obtained with RGG with turbid solution having N = 10¹⁴ spheres m⁻³is 23% which increases to 27% with RGG but the resolution decreases. The effect of coherence width of source in two-photon interference pattern is also studied with pseudo-thermal light obtained by RGG. It was observed that on increasing the coherence width the visibility of interference fringes increased and quality of the fringe reduced and when the coherence width was more then slit separation, in coincidence measurements, no interference pattern appeared. The results are used to explore the classical subwavelength interference nature with thermal light.     

Coherence

The concept of coherence is widely used in different areas of physics like in optics, in quantum optics or in neutron and X-ray scattering, however with subtle differences in meaning for the different communities. In quantum optics it is mainly the source of photons and its characterization in terms of coherence functions which is of concern. In a scattering experiment, on the other hand, the source is supposed to be characterized and it is the internal degrees of freedom of the sample which are studied via their influence on the detected interference pattern. It is one of the purposes of this paper to clarify the different concepts and to show how they are interrelated. The paper is organized as follows. First, we will discuss what interferes in a physical event. This will be treated according to the Feynman formulation of quantum mechanics in terms of probability amplitudes and we will describe nine rules on how to calculate with these amplitudes. Then we will discuss what destroys interference. The main part of the paper treats a number of applications from quantum optics and X-ray and neutron scattering. These include quantum beats, Hanbury Brown and Twiss interferometry, entangled states, Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen paradox and speckle from coherently illuminated samples. PACS 42.25.Hz; 42.25.Kb     

Nonclassical interference and entanglement generation using a photonic crystal fiber pair photon source

We demonstrate two key components for optical quantum information processing: a bright source of heralded single photons; and a bright source of entangled photon pairs. A pair of pump photons produces a correlated pair of photons at widely spaced wavelengths (583 nm and 900 nm), via a chi((3)) four-wave mixing process. We demonstrate nonclassical interference between heralded photons from independent sources with a visibility of 95% (after correction for background), and an entangled photon pair source, with a fidelity of 89% with a Bell state.     

Induced Transparency for Gamma Radiation via Nuclear Level Mixing

A significant reduction of absorption of single gamma photons has been observed using the Mössbauer spectra of ⁵⁷Fe in a FeCO₃ crystal. The absorption deficit can be ascribed to partially destructive interference for absorption because of two indistinguishable absorption paths. The necessary coherence is created by means of level mixing produced by a suitable combination of a magnetic dipole and electric quadrupole interaction.     

Subnatural linewidth single photons from a quantum dot

The observation of quantum-dot resonance fluorescence enabled a new solid-state approach to generating single photons with a bandwidth approaching the natural linewidth of a quantum-dot transition. Here, we operate in the small Rabi frequency limit of resonance fluorescence--the Heitler regime--to generate subnatural linewidth and high-coherence quantum light from a single quantum dot. The measured single-photon coherence is 30 times longer than the lifetime of the quantum-dot transition, and the single photons exhibit a linewidth which is inherited from the excitation laser. In contrast, intensity-correlation measurements reveal that this photon source maintains a high degree of antibunching behavior on the order of the transition lifetime with vanishing two-photon scattering probability. Generating decoherence-free phase-locked single photons from multiple quantum systems will be feasible with our approach.     

High angle phase modulated low coherence interferometry for path length resolved Doppler measurements of multiply scattered light

We describe an improved method for coherence domain path length resolved measurements of multiply scattered photons in turbid media. An electro-optic phase modulator sinusoidally modulates the phase in the reference arm of a low coherence fiber optic Mach-Zehnder interferometer, at a high phase modulation angle. For dynamic turbid media this results in Doppler broadened phase modulation interference peaks at the modulation frequency and its multiples. The signal to noise ratio is increased by almost one order or magnitude for large modulation angles and the shape of the spectral peaks resulting from the interference of Doppler shifted sample waves and reference light is not changed. The path length dependent Doppler broadening is compared with the theoretical predictions in the single scattered and diffusive regimes. The experimentally measured optical path lengths are validated with the Monte Carlo technique.