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Physical Review Letters

Interference between resolvable wavelengths with single-photon–resolved detection

Lloyd M. Davis

Published Mar 28, 1988• 9 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Streak-camera detection of moving interference fringes with single-photon resolution constitutes a novel Young's experiment in which the exact frequency of each detected photon cannot be specified without destroying the visibility of the interference pattern. The experiment demonstrates first-order cross spectral coherence between resolvable frequencies, in which case the optical frequency of the detected light must be calculated in terms of a time-dependent spectrum.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.60.1258

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Streak-camera detection of moving interference fringes with single-photon resolution constitutes a novel Young's experiment in which the exact frequency of each detected photon cannot be specified without destroying the visibility of the interference pattern. The experiment demonstrates first-order cross spectral coherence between resolvable frequencies, in which case the optical frequency of the detected light must be calculated in terms of a time-dependent spectrum.
When a frequency stabilized dye laser (linewidth ~1 MHz) is passed through a 15.25-MHz Bragg cell, a Doppler-shifted beam emerges at a small angle. Lenses are used to cross this beam with the unshifted beam to form moving interference fringes at the photocathode of a streak camera. By using a large gain of the streak camera intensifier and an intensified low-background readout of the phosphor, single photons are detectable at the photocathode. This forms a novel Young’s experiment conducted with two resolvable frequency beams passing through one known pinhole each. If the photocathode could discriminate the frequency of the detected photon, and hence which beam it came from, or if either beam were blocked, zero visibility results. The experiment gives a direct measurement of the first-order cross-coherence at single-photon detection levels of two-frequency resolvable beams. By contrast, in quantum beat experiments only the photon probability intensity vs time is measured, and the beats are then attributed to a first-order cross-coherence of the quantum pathways. The question of the frequency spectrum and cross-spectral density of each detected photon is addressed with reference to a time-dependent physical spectrum of light.1
Time-resolved Youngrquotrquotrquots interference and decoherence
We present a two-slit time-resolved Young's interference experiment. We use a streak camera, with 2 ps resolution, to measure the arrival time as well as the location of the photons into the detector from an infrared femtosecond pulsed laser. The interfering photons can have the same or different energies as selected from a monochromator. We show that the interference fringes tilt in x – t space and disappear as the difference in energy and the resolution time set in the streak camera increase. The results show deviations from classical interference formulae and a possible interpretation in terms of decoherence may be adequate.
We present time-resolved diffraction and two-slit interference experiments using a streak camera as a detector for femtosecond pulses of photons. These experiments show how the diffraction pattern is built by adding frames of a few photons to each frame. It is estimated that after 300 photons the diffraction pattern emerges. With time resolution we can check the speed of light and put an upper limit of 2 ps at our resolution to the time for wave function collapse in the quantum measurement process. We then produce interference experiments with photons of different energies impinging on the slits, i.e. we know which photon impinges on each slit. We show that for poor time resolution, no interference is observed, but for high time resolution, we have interference that is revealed as beats of 100 GHz frequency. The condition for interference is that the two pulses should overlap spatially at the detector, even if the pulses have different energies but are generated from the same pulse of the laser. The interference seems to be in agreement with classical theory at first sight. However, closer study and analysis of the data show deviations in the visibility of the interference fringes and of their phase. These experiments are discussed in connection with quantum mechanics and it may be concluded that the time resolution provides new data for understanding the longstanding and continuing arguments on wave-particle duality initiated by Newton, Young, Fresnel, Planck and others. A thought experiment is presented in the appendix to try to distinguish the photons at the detector by making it sensitive to colour.
Interference between different photons occurs and has been observed under diverse experimental conditions. A necessary condition in order to obtain interference fringes is the existence of at least two possible paths and unknown which-path information. If the photon beams have different frequencies, stability of the sources and fast spatially distributed detectors are required in order to detect the time displaced interference fringes. First order optical interference between two truly independent CW laser sources is observed. In contrast with the standard quantum criterion, interference is observed although the photon beams are distinguishable and, from quantum measurements, the path is unequivocally known for each photon beam. Segments of the continuous wave wavetrains are selected with an acousto-optic modulator. Temporal and spatial interference are integrated in a single combined phenomenon via streak camera detection. The displacement of the fringes in the time versus space interferograms evince the trajectories of the labeled photons. These results suggest that in non-degenerate frequency schemes, the ontology has to be refined and the which-path criterion must be precisely formulated. On the one hand, if the query refers to the frequency labeled photons, the path of each red or blue photon is known, whereas on the other hand, if the query is performed in terms of the detected photons, the path is unknown.
Single-photon interference experiments are attempted in the time domain using true single-photon streams. Self-heterodyning beats are clearly observed by letting the field associated with a single photon interfere with itself on a field-quadratic detector, which is a time analogue of Young's two-slit interference experiment. The temporal first-order coherence of single-photon fields, i.e., transient interference fringes, develops as cumulative detection events are mapped point-by-point onto a virtual capture frame by properly correlating the time-series data. The ability to single out photon counts at a designated timing paves the way for digital heterodyning with faint light for such use as phase measurement and quantum information processing.
The distinguishing of the multiphoton quantum interference effect from the classical one forms one of the most important issues in modern quantum mechanics and experimental quantum optics. For a long time, the two-photon interference (TPI) of correlated photons has been recognized as a pure quantum effect that cannot be simulated with classical lights. In the meantime, experiments have been carried out to investigate the classical analogues of the TPI. In this study, we conduct TPI experiments with uncorrelated photons with different center frequencies from a luminescent light source, and we compare our results with the previous ones of correlated photons. The observed TPI fringe can be expressed in the form of three phase terms related to the individual single-photon and two-photon states, and the fringe pattern is strongly affected by the two single-photon-interference fringes and also by their visibilities. With the exception of essential differences such as valid and accidental coincidence events within a given resolving time and the two-photon spectral bandwidth, the interference phenomenon itself exhibits the same features for both correlated and uncorrelated photons in the single-photon counting regime.