Quantum Prism

Ian S. Osborne, Robert Coontz

Yaakov Shaked, Shai Yefet, Avi Pe

The Brewster prism-pair is a major tool for dispersion control that produces tuned negative dispersion even when the prisms material has positive dispersion. We present a complementary technique for obtaining overall positive dispersion even when the material dispersion is negative, which is most useful for applications in the infrared, where the majority of the optical materials have negative dispersion. By adding a telescope between the prisms that images the first prism beyond the location of the second one, an effectively negative separation between the prisms can be obtained. This ability to flip the sign of the angular dispersion between the prisms provides a powerful new knob to the prism-pair system and allows higher degree of dispersion compensation. We demonstrate a prism-pair configuration, where both the 2nd and 4th order dispersion are compensated in the 1400-2400nm range, designed for a quantum optics experiment with ultra-broadband bi-photons. c 2014 Optical Society of America OCIS codes: 140.7090, 230.5480 Since the introduction of the Brewster prism-pair as a mechanism for dispersion control [1], it became a major tool for tuned dispersion compensation in ultrafast optical systems. Specifically, a prism-pair is commonly used to compensate for second-order dispersion (group delay dispersion - GDD). The angular dispersion that is created by the separation between the prisms tips always introduces negative GDD, even when the prisms material produces positive GDD. Thus, any negative dispersion can be achieved by the appropriate separation between the prisms; and tuned dispersion can be achieved by controlling the amount of prism material in the beam.

W. David Sharp, Niall Shanks

Arthur Fine's use of prism models to provide local and deterministic accounts of quantum correlation experiments is presented and analyzed in some detail. Fine's claim that “there is … no question of the consistency of prism models … with the quantum theory“ (forthcoming, p. 16) is disputed. Our criticisms are threefold: (1) consideration of the possibility of additional analyzer positions shows that prism models entail unacceptably high rejection rates in the relevant experiments; (2) similar considerations show that the models are at best only superficially local and deterministic; and (3) in any case, Fine extracts the quantum correlation statistics from prism models only by resurrecting conceptual problems similar to those that his models were to designed to solve.

Christopher R. Monroe, Robert J. Schoelkopf, Mikhail D. Lukin

Jian Qi Shen

An incoherent-gain prism coupler that can lead to enhanced total reflection is suggested by taking full advantage of pumped electric-dipole allowed transition that leads to gain-assisted negative permittivity. The tunable reflection spectrum of the prism coupler is quite sensitive to frequency detuning (e.g., 107 times that in conventional metal-substrate prism couplers) since the incoherent-gain optical response presented here results from atomic dipole-allowed transition. The present gain-assisted prism coupler, which can exhibit an unusual effect of dispersion-sensitive tunable reflection enhancement, has potential applications in design of new quantum optical and photonic devices, e.g., frequency-sensitive optical switches and photonic transistors.

Sean A. Hartnoll, Subir Sachdev A, Tadashi Takayanagi +3 more