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Optics Letters

Photon-number-resolved detection of photon-subtracted thermal light

Yanhua Zhai, F. E. Becerra, Boris L. Glebov, Jianming Wen, Adriana E. Lita, Brice Calkins, Thomas Gerrits, Jingyun Fan, Sae Woo Nam, Alan L. Migdall

Published Jun 17, 2013• 38 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We examine the photon statistics of photon-subtracted thermal light using photon-number-resolved detection. We demonstrate experimentally that the photon number distribution transforms from a Bose-Einstein distribution to a Poisson distribution as the number of subtracted photons increases. We also show that second- and higher-order photon correlation functions can be directly determined from the photon-number-resolved detection measurements of a single optical beam.

DOI
10.1364/ol.38.002171

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We examine the photon statistics of photon-subtracted thermal light using photon-number-resolved detection. We demonstrate experimentally that the photon number distribution transforms from a Bose-Einstein distribution to a Poisson distribution as the number of subtracted photons increases. We also show that second- and higher-order photon correlation functions can be directly determined from the photon-number-resolved detection measurements of a single optical beam.
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