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Journal of Optics

Demonstration of the angular uncertainty principle for single photons

Barry Jack, Peder Aursand, Sonja Franke‐Arnold, David G. Ireland, Jonathan Leach, Stephen Mark Barnett, Miles J. Padgett

Published Apr 28, 2011• 19 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We present an experimental demonstration of a form of the angular uncertainty principle for single photons. Producing light from type I down-conversion, we use spatial light modulators to perform measurements on signal and idler photons. By measuring states in the angle and orbital angular momentum basis, we demonstrate the uncertainty relation of Franke-Arnold et al (2004 New J. Phys. 6 103). We consider two manifestations of the uncertainty relation. In the first we herald the presence of a photon by detection of its paired partner and demonstrate the uncertainty relation on this single photon. In the second, we perform orbital angular momentum measurements on one photon and angular measurements on its correlated partner exploring, in this way, the uncertainty relation through non-local measurements.

DOI
10.1088/2040-8978/13/6/064017

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Barry Jack

This thesis is a dissemination of the experimental work I have carried out in the last three and a half years, under supervision of Prof. Miles Padgett and Dr. Sonja Franke-Arnold. Presented within are seven unique experiments investigating the orbital angular momentum (OAM) states of light, and the associated spatial modes. Six of these experiments relate to measurements on quantum-entangled photon pairs produced in down-conversion. The first chapter of my thesis is a brief review of the some of the contributions made to the field of research of OAM, both involving classical and quantum states of light. This chapter introduces some of the hallmark experiments within the subject, from which my experimental work reported in this thesis is inspired. The second chapter details the set up of the down conversion experiment, and the experimental techniques used to design a fully functioning quantum measurement system. Most importantly, this includes the holographic techniques used to measure the spatial states of the photon pairs. In addition to holographic measurements, a system to holographically auto-align the down-conversion experiment was developed. Due to the sensitive nature of the experiments presented, this automated system has been crucial to the success of all of the single photon experiments presented within this document. The experimental results are split into three separate categories. The first (Chapter 3) describes measurements investigating the Fourier relationship between OAM and angular position states, both at the classical and quantum levels. The following chapter (Chapter 4) consists of four experiments designed to quantify the degree of entanglement of states of OAM and angular position. This includes the first demonstration of the historic EPR (Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen) paradox for OAM and angle states, violation of a Bell-type inequality for arbitrary OAM states, and characterisation of the density matrices for a range of OAM state-spaces. The final chapter (Chapter 5) reports a new type of ghost imaging using down-converted photon pairs. In this experiment, we violate a Bell inequality within a ghost image, demonstrating the entangled nature of our system and contributing a new element to the long standing contention over quantum vs. classical features within ghost imaging. These experiments have seen a wide range of collaboration. The experimental work on the Fourier relation on single photons was carried out in collaboration with Dr. Anand Kumar Jha (University of Rochester). The work on ghost imaging was performed with collaboration with Prof. Monika Ritsch-Marte (Innsbruck Medical University), and the angular EPR paradox work was carried out in collaboration with Prof. Robert Boyd (Univ. of Rochester) and Prof. David Ireland (Univ. of Glasgow). The work I present here is experimental, however any theoretical developments are in a large part due to the support of Dr. Sonja Franke-Arnold and Prof. Steve Barnett (Univ. of Strathclyde).

•Jan 1, 2012•1 citation
We present an experimental demonstration of a form of the angular uncertainty principle for single photons. Producing light from type I down-conversion, we use spatial light modulators to perform measurements on signal and idler photons. By measuring states in the angle and orbital angular momentum basis, we demonstrate the uncertainty relation of Franke-Arnold et al (2004 New J. Phys. 6 103). We consider two manifestations of the uncertainty relation. In the first we herald the presence of a photon by detection of its paired partner and demonstrate the uncertainty relation on this single photon. In the second, we perform orbital angular momentum measurements on one photon and angular measurements on its correlated partner exploring, in this way, the uncertainty relation through non-local measurements.
The uncertainty principle places fundamental limits on the accuracy with which we are able to measure the values of different physical quantities (Heisenberg 1949 The Physical Principles of the Quantum Theory (New York: Dover); Robertson 1929 Phys. Rev. 34 127). This has profound effects not only on the microscopic but also on the macroscopic level of physical systems. The most familiar form of the uncertainty principle relates the uncertainties in position and linear momentum. Other manifestations include those relating uncertainty in energy to uncertainty in time duration, phase of an electromagnetic field to photon number and angular position to angular momentum (Vaccaro and Pegg 1990 J. Mod. Opt. 37 17; Barnett and Pegg 1990 Phys. Rev. A 41 3427). In this paper, we report the first observation of the last of these uncertainty relations and derive the associated states that satisfy the equality in the uncertainty relation. We confirm the form of these states by detailed measurement of the angular momentum of a light beam after passage through an appropriate angular aperture. The angular uncertainty principle applies to all physical systems and is particularly important for systems with cylindrical symmetry.
The violation of local uncertainty relations is a valuable tool for detecting entanglement, especially in multi-dimensional systems. The orbital angular momentum of light provides such a multi-dimensional system. We study quantum correlations for the conjugate variables of orbital angular momentum and angular position. We determine an experimentally testable criterion for the demonstration of an angular version of the EPR paradox. For the interpretation of future experimental results from our proposed setup, we include a model for the indeterminacies inherent to the angular position measurement. For this measurement angular apertures are used to determine the probability density of the angle. We show that for a class of aperture functions a demonstration of an angular EPR paradox, according to our criterion, is to be expected.
Stimulated parametric down-conversion (StimPDC) produces an idler beam that exhibits a phase conjugate of the spatial structure of the classical seed beam. Extending this effect to the single-photon regime can, in principle, enable the control of the orbital angular momentum of single photons. However, its experimental implementation remains challenging due to the lower photon flux of realistic single-photon sources compared to a classical pump beam, which causes the StimPDC process to occur less frequently compared to its spontaneous counterpart. To overcome this, we propose a cascaded parametric down-conversion scheme, in which the signal photon from a spontaneously down-converted pair seeds the StimPDC process, while the idler photon heralds the seed's presence. This configuration uses coincidence detection to effectively post-select for stimulated events among the background of spontaneous contributions. We show that phase conjugation at the single-photon level manifests as a bias towards equal orbital angular momentum between the heralding idler and the stimulated idler. Our results offer a practical route to manipulate single-photon correlations in the orbital angular momentum degree of freedom and could have implications for applications such as free-space quantum communication and quantum-enhanced sensing.
This thesis is a dissemination of the experimental work I have carried out in the last three and a half years, under supervision of Prof. Miles Padgett and Dr. Sonja Franke-Arnold. Presented within are seven unique experiments investigating the orbital angular momentum (OAM) states of light, and the associated spatial modes. Six of these experiments relate to measurements on quantum-entangled photon pairs produced in down-conversion. The first chapter of my thesis is a brief review of the some of the contributions made to the field of research of OAM, both involving classical and quantum states of light. This chapter introduces some of the hallmark experiments within the subject, from which my experimental work reported in this thesis is inspired. The second chapter details the set up of the down conversion experiment, and the experimental techniques used to design a fully functioning quantum measurement system. Most importantly, this includes the holographic techniques used to measure the spatial states of the photon pairs. In addition to holographic measurements, a system to holographically auto-align the down-conversion experiment was developed. Due to the sensitive nature of the experiments presented, this automated system has been crucial to the success of all of the single photon experiments presented within this document. The experimental results are split into three separate categories. The first (Chapter 3) describes measurements investigating the Fourier relationship between OAM and angular position states, both at the classical and quantum levels. The following chapter (Chapter 4) consists of four experiments designed to quantify the degree of entanglement of states of OAM and angular position. This includes the first demonstration of the historic EPR (Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen) paradox for OAM and angle states, violation of a Bell-type inequality for arbitrary OAM states, and characterisation of the density matrices for a range of OAM state-spaces. The final chapter (Chapter 5) reports a new type of ghost imaging using down-converted photon pairs. In this experiment, we violate a Bell inequality within a ghost image, demonstrating the entangled nature of our system and contributing a new element to the long standing contention over quantum vs. classical features within ghost imaging. These experiments have seen a wide range of collaboration. The experimental work on the Fourier relation on single photons was carried out in collaboration with Dr. Anand Kumar Jha (University of Rochester). The work on ghost imaging was performed with collaboration with Prof. Monika Ritsch-Marte (Innsbruck Medical University), and the angular EPR paradox work was carried out in collaboration with Prof. Robert Boyd (Univ. of Rochester) and Prof. David Ireland (Univ. of Glasgow). The work I present here is experimental, however any theoretical developments are in a large part due to the support of Dr. Sonja Franke-Arnold and Prof. Steve Barnett (Univ. of Strathclyde).