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Europhysics Letters (EPL)

Finesse and Resolution Enhancement in Two-Photon Interferometry

Ernst Mohler, Jurgen Brendel, Robert Lange, W. Martienssen

Published Mar 15, 1989• 16 citations
Publisher

Abstract

It is verified experimentally that the transmissivity of a Michelson interferometer for pairs of coherent photons is the square of the single-photon transmissivity. This behaviour is connected with an enhancement of interferometer finesse and resolution and can be understood as a consequence of quantum-mechanical interference between the multiple ways the photon pair can traverse the interferometer. A modification of the experiment is suggested which allows to study different types of two-photon multiple-beam interferences.

DOI
10.1209/0295-5075/8/6/004

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It is verified experimentally that the transmissivity of a Michelson interferometer for pairs of coherent photons is the square of the single-photon transmissivity. This behaviour is connected with an enhancement of interferometer finesse and resolution and can be understood as a consequence of quantum-mechanical interference between the multiple ways the photon pair can traverse the interferometer. A modification of the experiment is suggested which allows to study different types of two-photon multiple-beam interferences.
After a very brief review of the historical Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen (EPR) experiments, a new two-photon interference type EPR experiment is reported. A two-photon state was generated by optical parametric down conversion. Pairs of light quanta with degenerate frequency but divergent directions of propagation were sent to two independent Michelson interferometers. First and second order interference effectors were studied. Different than other reports, we observed that the second order interference visibility vanished when the optical path difference of the interferometers were much less than the coherence length of the pumping laser beam. However, we also observed that the second order interference behaved differently depending on whether the interferometers were set at equal or different optical path differences.
The interference of entangled photon pairs permits the study of the fundamental properties of quantum mechanics. The process is also finding practical applications in optical imaging. The Michelson interferometer provides an elegant means for characterizing the degree of two-photon entanglement, but the technique has not yet been described and analyzed in detail. Here we provide a full description of the interference of collinear down-converted photons in a Michelson interferometer. We explain the basic elements that characterize the interference pattern and complement the theory with experimental measurements. The two-photon Michelson interferometer can be used in quantum optical coherence tomography for dispersion-free imaging and localization.
Observations using interferometers provide sensitivity to features of images on angular scales much smaller than any single telescope, on the order of Δθ ∼ λ/b where b is the interferometric baseline. Present-day optical interferometers are essentially classical, interfering single photons with themselves. However, there is a new wave of interest in interferometry using multiple photons, whose mechanisms are inherently quantum mechanical, which offer the prospects of increased baselines and finer resolutions among other advantages. We will discuss recent ideas and results for quantum-assisted interferometry using the resource of entangled pairs, and specifically a two-photon amplitude technique aimed at improved precision in astrometry.
We have observed two-photon quantum interference in a Michelson interferometer. For the first time, we experimentally demonstrated two-photon quantum interference patterns, which show the transition from nonsubwavelength interference fringes to the general subwavelength interference. At the same time, a photon bunching effect was also shown by a postselection. The \ensuremath{\mid}1, 1⟩ state with a single photon in a mode corresponding to each arm of the interferometer was exclusively postselected by using path difference between two arms.
The interference of two photons in the optical gating Michelson interferometer is investigated. The phenomenon is studied using two different representations of photons: the space-time domain and a step-by-step two photon state evolution. Both representations lead to an equivalent description of the two-photon states which is the interference of four cases of two-photon traveling states, as implied by the evolution analysis. Additionally, the space-time domain analysis reveals that the classical interference of high-intensity light source is identical to the two-photon interference in the quantum regime except for a multiplicative factor of (n 2), where n is the number of photons.
We investigate the interference of two photons in an optical gating Michelson interferometer. The phenomenon is studied using two different representations of photons: the space-time domain and a step-by-step two-photon state evolution. Both representations lead to identical results. The evolution analysis describes the result by the interference of four two-photon traveling states, whereas the space-time domain analysis reveals that the classical interference of the high-intensity light source is identical to two-photon interference in the quantum regime, except for a multiplicative factor of (n2), where n is the number of photons.