Physical Review A

Comment on ‘‘Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen state for space-time variables in a two-photon interference experiment’’

Paul G. Kwiat, Aephraim M. Steinberg, R. Y. Chiao

Published Nov 1, 1993• 1 citation

Abstract

A recent article by Shih, Sergienko, and Rubin [Phys. Rev. A 47, 1288 (1993)] reports a two-photon interference effect in which fringes with a visibility of 59% were observed; for an ideal system, quantum mechanics predicts perfect visibility interference. In explanation of this discrepancy, the authors conclude that the reduced visibility is due to ``nonperfect phase matching of the down-conversion,'' the parent process of the correlated photon pairs. They imply that the nonperfect phase matching stems from the finite size of their down-conversion crystal. We argue that the crystal length was not a limiting factor in their measurement, citing three similar experiments which achieved higher visibilities [Kwiat, Steinberg, and Chiao, Phys. Rev. A 47, R2472 (1993); Brendel, Mohler, and Martienssen, Phys. Rev. Lett. 66, 1142 (1991); Europhys. Lett. 20, 575 (1992)].

DOI: 10.1103/physreva.48.3999

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