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Oxford University Press eBooks

More Fun with Photons: Photon‐Splitting and its Uses

Christopher C. Gerry, Kimberley M. Bruno

Published Feb 21, 2013• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

This chapter describes experiments involving pairs of photons, which display much richer and more remarkable manifestations of quantum interference than can be seen in single-photon experiments. These include two photons on a beam splitter and the Hong–Ou–Mandel experiment. It also considers two phenomena: the quantum eraser, and faster-than-light (superluminal) quantum tunneling. The chapter concludes with an experiment performed by X. Zou, L. Wang, and L. Mandel at the University of Rochester in 1991. This experiment shows that it is possible to manipulate photon interference (to destroy or revive it) with actions on another photon that is not even in the interfering pathways.

DOI
10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199666560.003.0004

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This chapter describes experiments involving pairs of photons, which display much richer and more remarkable manifestations of quantum interference than can be seen in single-photon experiments. These include two photons on a beam splitter and the Hong–Ou–Mandel experiment. It also considers two phenomena: the quantum eraser, and faster-than-light (superluminal) quantum tunneling. The chapter concludes with an experiment performed by X. Zou, L. Wang, and L. Mandel at the University of Rochester in 1991. This experiment shows that it is possible to manipulate photon interference (to destroy or revive it) with actions on another photon that is not even in the interfering pathways.
We have observed an effect known as a quantum eraser, using a setup similar to one previously employed to demonstrate a violation of Bell's inequalities. In this effect, an interfering system is first rendered incoherent by making the alternate Feynman paths which contribute to the overall process distinguishable; with our apparatus this is achieved by placing a half wave plate in one arm of a Hong-Ou-Mandel interferometer so as to rotate the polarization of the light in that arm by 90\ifmmode^\circ\else\textdegree\fi{}. This adds information to the system, in that polarization is a new parameter which serves to label the path of a given photon, even after a recombining beam splitter. The quantum ``eraser'' removes this information from the state vector, after the output port of the interferometer, but in time to cause interference effects to reappear upon coincidence detection. For this purpose, we use two polarizers in front of our detectors. We present experimental results showing how the degree of erasure (which determines the visibility of the interference) depends on the relative orientation of the polarizers, along with theoretical curves. In addition, we show how this procedure may do more than merely erase, in that the act of ``pasting together'' two previously distinguishable paths can introduce a new relative phase between them.
Abstract The Hong−Ou−Mandel (HOM) effect was long believed to be a two-photon interference phenomenon. It describes the fact that two indistinguishable photons mixed at a beam splitter will bunch together to one of the two output modes. Considering the two single-photon emitters such as trapped ions, we explore a hidden scenario of the HOM effect, where entanglement can be generated between the two ions when a single photon is detected by one of the detectors. A second photon emitted by the entangled photon sources will be subsequently detected by the same detector. However, we can also control the fate of the second photon by manipulating the entangled state. Instead of two-photon interference, the phase of the entangled state is responsible for the photon’s path in our proposal. Toward a feasible experimental realization, we conduct a quantum jump simulation on the system to show its robustness against experimental errors.