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Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE

Some recent progresses in quantum tomography realised at INRIM

Fabrizio Piacentini, Elizabeth A. Goldschmidt, M. G. Mingolla, Ivo Pietro Degiovanni, Marco Gramegna, Ivano Ruo Berchera, Sergey V. Polyakov, Silke Peters, S. Kück, E. Taralli, L. Lolli, M. Rajteri, Matteo G. A. Paris, Alan L. Migdall, G. Brida, Marco Genovese

Published Sep 26, 2013• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

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.

DOI
10.1117/12.2023067

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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.
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The research activities described in this thesis have basically an experimental profile, and were realized in the Quantum Optics Laboratories of the Optic Division in the Istituto Nazionale di Ricerca Metrologica (I.N.Ri.M.). The experiments presented here are oriented to the characterization of single- and few-photon detectors calibration, exploiting quantum properties. The first chapter has an introductory character, oriented to the study of nonlinear optics phenomena and focused in the spontaneous parametric down conversion (PDC) process. After the quantization of the free electromagnetic field, we recall the quantum theory of PDC. In the second chapter the Klyshko's two-photon calibration technique is presented and applied to an Avalanche Photo Diode (APD) based single photon counting module. Chapter three is an introduction to quantum measurements and quantum operation theories where the concept of positive-operator valued measurement (POVM) is presented. In chapter four, the quantum characterization of a true photon-number resolving detector (PNRD) based on a transition edge sensor (TES) is presented. In this experiment, the POVM of the TES is reconstructed by realizing a tomography of the detection process's quantum operation, using as a probe a set of known coherent states. In the fifth and last chapter, the POVM of a tree type PNRD is reconstructed exploiting strong quantum correlations of PDC twin beams
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.
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