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arXiv:1305.5708 · Quantum Matter

Quantum and Classical Characterization of Single/Few Photon Detectors

M. G. Mingolla, Fabrizio Piacentini, Alessio Avella, Marco Gramegna, L. Lolli, Alice Meda, Ivano Ruo Berchera, E. Taralli, P. Traina, M. Rajteri, G. Brida, Ivo Pietro Degiovanni, Marco Genovese

Published Jun 1, 2015• 2 citations
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Abstract

This paper's purpose is to review the results recently obtained in the Quantum Optics labs of the National Institute of Metrological Research (INRIM) in the field of single- and few-photon detectors calibration, from both the classical and quantum viewpoint. In the first part of the paper is presented the calibration of a single-photon detector with absolute methods, while in the second part we focus on photon-number-resolving detectors, discussing both the classical and quantum characterization of such devices.

DOI
10.1166/qm.2015.1275

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In this presentation a review about the current state of the art concerning the application of deterministic single photon sources for absolute radiometry, i.e. the calibration of single photon detectors, is given. At the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt, the German national Metrology institute, an extensive research is carried out to optimize single photon sources for this purpose. Different single photon sources are currently under investigation, these are sources based on defect centres in (nano-)diamonds, on molecules and on semiconductor quantum dots.
We present some Quantum Tomography related results recently obtained in the Quantum Optics labs of the National Institute of Metrological Research (INRIM). Initially we describe the first experimental implementation of a new protocol for the reconstruction of a photon-number-resolving (PNR) detector’s POVM (Positive Operator-Valued Measure): such a protocol, exploiting the strong quantum correlations of an ancillary state, results more robust and efficient than its classical counterparts. The second part of the paper focuses on the quantum characterization of a transition-edge sensor (TES) based PNR detector, i.e. the experimental tomography of the POVM of a TES, with a method based on a quorum of coherent probes: we show the reconstruction of the POVM elements up to 11 detected photons and 100 incoming photons, demonstrating the linearity of such a device. Finally, we present a method for the experimental reconstruction of the modal structure of multimode optical fields exploiting a single measurement of higher-order photon number autocorrelation functions. We show our reconstructions of up to three different modes per optical state, demonstrating the excellent agreement with the theoretical predictions and the robustness of our method itself.