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Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE

Imaging single photons in non-separable states of polarization and spatial-mode

Xinru Cheng, Enrique J. Galvez

Published Oct 8, 2014• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

Non-separable superpositions of polarization and spatial mode of a single photon produce a state that has a polarization that depends on the transverse position, and contains all states of polarization represented on the Poincaré sphere. We have done measurements of the space-dependent state of polarization of single photons prepared in distinct 2×2 (qubit-qubit) and 2×3 (qubit-qutrit) non-separable superpositions of Laguerre-Gauss spatial and polarization states. Detection was done by polarimetry of the light projected at distinct locations in the transverse plane. The polarization patterns had a C-point polarization singularity (lemon, star or monstar) at the center of the transverse wavefunction.

DOI
10.1117/12.2061199

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Non-separable superpositions of polarization and spatial mode of a single photon produce a state that has a polarization that depends on the transverse position, and contains all states of polarization represented on the Poincaré sphere. We have done measurements of the space-dependent state of polarization of single photons prepared in distinct 2×2 (qubit-qubit) and 2×3 (qubit-qutrit) non-separable superpositions of Laguerre-Gauss spatial and polarization states. Detection was done by polarimetry of the light projected at distinct locations in the transverse plane. The polarization patterns had a C-point polarization singularity (lemon, star or monstar) at the center of the transverse wavefunction.
We report the efficient creation and detection of hybrid entanglement between one photon's polarization and another photon's complex transverse polarization pattern including various polarization singularities. The polarization measurement of the first photon triggers a polarization-sensitive imaging of its partner photon, the vector photon, using a single-photon-sensitive camera. Thereby, the vector photon's complex polarization pattern is reconstructed tomographically dependent on the type of polarization measurement performed on its partner. To evaluate the quality of the observed patterns, we introduce a fidelity-like measure which compares the reconstructed polarization with the theoretically expected one at every transverse spatial position. We find that the measured polarization patterns and the theory overlap by more than 90%. Moreover, we visualize the varying strengths of polarization entanglement for different transverse regions and demonstrate an interesting phenomenon: Each vector photon can be both entangled and not entangled in polarization with its partner photon. We give an intuitive, information-theoretical explanation for our results. Our results pave the way to study quantum properties of the rich field of such complex light modes with the potential to improve various applications in quantum informational tasks.
A single projective measurement on a superposition state does not provide the full information about the state. Therefore, multiple projections of the state onto a multitude of eigenstates are necessary. In this paper, we have demonstrated that generic Poincaré beams can be uniquely identified through a single projective measurement, although they are superposition states. Polarization optics utilizes different orders of Poincaré spheres as topological models to describe both uniform and spatially varying polarization states. These topological constructs quantify the underlying singularities and symmetries. Any measurement performed using a polarizer collapses the superposition state into one of its eigenstates. The additional features introduced by the orbital angular momentum basis, which vary across different orders of Poincaré spheres, make such projection measurements particularly interesting. In particular, a generic Poincaré beam exhibits the unique property that every possible superposition state produces a distinct signature intensity pattern when passed through a polarizer, a phenomenon explored in this paper.
For a general-form polarization biphoton qutrit, physically corresponding to a pair of arbitrarily polarized photons in a single frequency and wavevector mode, we explicitly find polarization Schmidt modes. A simple method is suggested for factorizing the state vector and the explicit expressions for the factorizing photon creation operators are found. The degrees of entanglement and polarization of a qutrit are shown to depend directly on the commutation features of the factorizing operators. Clear graphic representations for the Stokes vectors of the qutrit state as a whole, its Schmidt modes and factorizing single-photon creation operators are given based on the Poincare sphere. An experimental scheme is proposed for measuring the parameters of the Schmidt decomposition as well as for demonstrating the operational meaning of qutrit entanglement.
For a general-form polarization biphoton qutrit, physically corresponding to a pair of arbitrarily polarized photons in a single frequency and wavevector mode, we explicitly find polarization Schmidt modes. A simple method is suggested for factorizing the state vector and the explicit expressions for the factorizing photon creation operators are found. The degrees of entanglement and polarization of a qutrit are shown to depend directly on the commutation features of the factorizing operators. Clear graphic representations for the Stokes vectors of the qutrit state as a whole, its Schmidt modes and factorizing single-photon creation operators are given based on the Poincaré sphere. An experimental scheme is proposed for measuring the parameters of the Schmidt decomposition as well as for demonstrating the operational meaning of qutrit entanglement.