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Acta Physica Sinica

THE INTERFERENCE PHENOMENA OF LIGHT AT VERY LOW INTENSITY

Z Janossy

Published Jan 1, 1958• 0 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

An interference pattern is obtained with a Michelson interferometer; the intensity distribution in the pattern is determined by counting the rate of photons by means of a photomultiplier. It is shown that the pattern obtained for very low intensities of light does not differ outside the margin of experimental error from the pattern obtained for normal intensities. At low intensities about 10 photons enter the interferometer per second thus for these low intensities in average at any time much less than one photon is contained inside the interferometer.

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THE INTERFERENCE PHENOMENA OF LIGHT AT VERY LOW INTENSITY

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An interference pattern is obtained with a Michelson interferometer; the intensity distribution in the pattern is determined by counting the rate of photons by means of a photomultiplier. It is shown that the pattern obtained for very low intensities of light does not differ outside the margin of experimental error from the pattern obtained for normal intensities. At low intensities about 106 photons enter the interferometer per second thus for these low intensities in average at any time much less than one photon is contained inside the interferometer.

Acta Physica Sinica•Jan 1, 1958•0 citations

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Physical Review A•Aug 14, 2012•26 citations
An interference pattern is obtained with a Michelson interferometer; the intensity distribution in the pattern is determined by counting the rate of photons by means of a photomultiplier. It is shown that the pattern obtained for very low intensities of light does not differ outside the margin of experimental error from the pattern obtained for normal intensities. At low intensities about 10 photons enter the interferometer per second thus for these low intensities in average at any time much less than one photon is contained inside the interferometer.
An interference pattern is obtained with a Michelson interferometer; the intensity distribution in the pattern is determined by counting the rate of photons by means of a photomultiplier. It is shown that the pattern obtained for very low intensities of light does not differ outside the margin of experimental error from the pattern obtained for normal intensities. At low intensities about 106 photons enter the interferometer per second thus for these low intensities in average at any time much less than one photon is contained inside the interferometer.
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.
A Michelson's interference experiment has been performed using a single-photon counting under the condition that at most one photon is present in the interferometer. A CW mode-locked Ar + laser has been employed as a light source. It has been found that the dependence of the visibility on the difference in the two arm lengths measured on a single-photon level is the same as that for the multi-photon interference experiment. This dependence and the distribution of the photon detection time measured simultaneously by a time-correlated single-photon counting method have been found to be explained well by assuming that all the photons in the mode-locked laser pulse examined have the same temporal and spectral characteristics. A quantum mechanical analysis of this kind of experiment is also presented.
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.