Interference with Single Photons

Fan Lv, Fang‐Wen Sun, Chang‐Ling Zou +2 more

We proposed a protocol of measuring the duration of ultra-short single-photon pulse with two-photon interference. The pulse duration can be obtained from the width of the visibility of two-photon Hong-Ou-Mandel interference or the indistinguishability of the two photons. Moreover, the shape of a single-photon pulse can be measured with ultra-short single-photon pulses through the two-photon interference.

P. Hariharan

John Rarity

Peng Chen, Ce Yang, Zhiqiang Ren +1 more

Abstract We observe the single-photon interference by a single-photon source generated from a spontaneous four-wave mixing process in a cold 85 Rb atomic ensemble. By adjusting the coupling and pump power, we obtain two distinguished temporal modes for single photons. Through an unbalance Mach–Zehnder interferometer, these temporally shaped single photons interfere with themselves and produce constructive or destructive interference according to the phase in the single-photon wave packet. The interferometric results of these temporally shaped single photons match well with the theoretical simulation.

D. E. Thomsen

H. Ollivier, Sarah E. Thomas, Stephen C. Wein +12 more

Hong-Ou-Mandel interference is a cornerstone of optical quantum technologies. We explore both theoretically and experimentally how unwanted multiphoton components of single-photon sources affect the interference visibility, and find that the overlap between the single photons and the noise photons significantly impacts the interference. We apply our approach to quantum dot single-photon sources to access the mean wave packet overlap of the single-photon component. This study provides a consistent platform with which to diagnose the limitations of current single-photon sources on the route towards the ideal device.