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Physical Review A

Quantum optics of lossy beam splitters

Stephen Mark Barnett, John Jeffers, A. Gatti, R. Loudon

Published Mar 1, 1998• 184 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The familiar input-output relations for an optical beam splitter are generalized to allow for linear absorption by the medium forming the mirror. Beam-splitter losses generally affect the noise levels detectable in experiments involving nonclassical light. When employed to investigate two-photon interference effects, a lossy beam splitter can lead to apparent nonlinear absorption, which, in the most extreme case, leads to either both or neither of the photons being absorbed. The degree of second-order coherence of antibunched light can be maintained on transmission through the beam splitter but any amplitude squeezing in the incident light is degraded.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.57.2134

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The familiar input-output relations for an optical beam splitter are generalized to allow for linear absorption by the medium forming the mirror. Beam-splitter losses generally affect the noise levels detectable in experiments involving nonclassical light. When employed to investigate two-photon interference effects, a lossy beam splitter can lead to apparent nonlinear absorption, which, in the most extreme case, leads to either both or neither of the photons being absorbed. The degree of second-order coherence of antibunched light can be maintained on transmission through the beam splitter but any amplitude squeezing in the incident light is degraded.
The second-order coherence of optical fields at output ports of a beam splitter is investigated. The properties of the second-order coherence are not only strongly dependent on the input states but also quite involved with the nature of the beam splitter. When parameters of both the input states and the beam splitter are chosen appropriately, the fields at the output ports will exhibit quantum behaviour. Between the two output modes, there stands mode–mode correlation which can even be anticorrelation. Some nonclassical properties, such as the photon antibunching effect of the input fields, may be destroyed by the beam splitter.
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