Biphoton interference and photonic de Broglie wavelength of parametric downconverted photons

Abstract

Summary form only given. Recently, Jacobson et al. ( see Phys. Rev. Lett., vol.74, p. 4835 (1995)) proposed the concept of "photonic de Broglie wave" in multiphoton states. They argued that the photonic de Broglie wavelength of an ensemble of photons with wavelength /spl lambda//sub 0/ and average number of photons N can be measured using a special interferometer with "effective beam splitters" that do not split the multiphoton states into constituent photons. Fonseca et al. see Phys. Rev. Lett., vol. 82, p. 2868 (1999)) measured the photonic de Broglie wavelength of a two-photon state ("biphoton") using a kind of Young's interferometer. We propose and demonstrate the measurement of photonic de Broglie wavelength of biphotons generated by parametric down-conversion utilizing the usual Mach-Zehnder interferometer.