Infrared (IR) imaging is important in many disciplines but is limited by inefficient, noisy and expensive cameras. Nonlinear interferometers (NLI) enable imaging with undetected photons, where correlated visible-IR photon pairs convey information about an object illuminated in the IR but detected by a visible camera. We introduce compact PPLN based Michelson-style NLI sand discuss their operation in the context of a comprehensive model, exploring the influence of internal losses, IR seeding, and parametric gain on interferometer contrast and visibility. We show that NLI performance can be enhanced for samples with low transmission even in the presence of significant experimental losses.
Characterization of quantum states and detectors is a key task in rapidly emerging optical quantum science and technology. First, we introduce and experimentally demonstrate a noise-robust quantum state characterization protocol using photon-number-resolving (PNR) measurements. Unlike conventional continuous variable state tomography methods, our method utilizes computationally efficient semi-definite programming (SDP) and can be used to accurately reconstruct the state even after loss a known loss. The protocol is demonstrated for a weak coherent state as well as a single-photon Fock state.
Next, we propose a method for characterizing a photodetector by directly reconstructing the Wigner functions of the detector’s Positive-Operator-Value-Measure (POVM) elements via weak-field homodyne technique. We also report our experimental progress on characterizing a superconducting transition-edge sensor for PNR measurements.
In this presentation, we report direct evidence of the bosonic nature of SPPs in a scattering-based beamsplitter, in one of the most simple experiments of quantum optics - done using SPPs instead of photons propagating in air. A parametric down-conversion source is used to produce two indistinguishable photons, each of which is converted into a SPP on a metal-stripe waveguide and then made to interact through a semi-transparent Bragg mirror. In this plasmonic analog of the Hong-Ou-Mandel experiment, we measure a coincidence dip with a visibility of 72%, the signature that SPPs are bosons and that quantum interference is clearly involved.
We have witnessed proliferate growth in theoretical and experimental efforts to understand and control physical systems in a
quantum level. In a quantum optics laboratory, Gaussian states, whose phase properties are described by Gaussian
probability-like functions, were generated but there was some limitation to use them for various tasks of quantum
information processing. There have been suggestions and realisations to engineer the quantum state by subtracting or adding
single photons from/to a Gaussian field. It is also possible to test fundamental quantum theories using these techniques. We
discuss various issues in subtraction and addition of single photons.
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