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Optics Letters

High-visibility Franson interference of time–energy entangled photon pairs from warm atomic ensemble

Jiho Park, Danbi Kim, Heonoh Kim, Han Seb Moon

Published Jul 17, 2019• 20 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We experimentally demonstrate Franson interference of a time–energy entangled photon pair generated via collective two-photon coherence in the 5S1/2−5P3/2−5D5/2 transition of warm Rb87 atoms. The two unbalanced Michelson interferometers used in our setup are spatially separated in order to understand entanglement as a nonlocal property of the photon pairs from the warm atomic ensemble. We observe a Franson interference fringe with a high visibility of 99.1±1.3% with continuous-wave-mode photon pairs from the cascade-type atomic ensemble. To the best of our knowledge, this work is the first demonstration of the nonlocal two-photon interference experiment in separated photon channels by use of two-photon pairs emitted from a cascade-type atomic system as originally proposed by Franson [Phys. Rev. Lett.62, 2205 (1989)PRLTAO0031-900710.1103/PhysRevLett.62.2205].

DOI
10.1364/ol.44.003681

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We experimentally demonstrate Franson interference of a time–energy entangled photon pair generated via collective two-photon coherence in the 5S1/2−5P3/2−5D5/2 transition of warm Rb87 atoms. The two unbalanced Michelson interferometers used in our setup are spatially separated in order to understand entanglement as a nonlocal property of the photon pairs from the warm atomic ensemble. We observe a Franson interference fringe with a high visibility of 99.1±1.3% with continuous-wave-mode photon pairs from the cascade-type atomic ensemble. To the best of our knowledge, this work is the first demonstration of the nonlocal two-photon interference experiment in separated photon channels by use of two-photon pairs emitted from a cascade-type atomic system as originally proposed by Franson [Phys. Rev. Lett.62, 2205 (1989)PRLTAO0031-900710.1103/PhysRevLett.62.2205].
Quantum entanglement first attracted attention as the heart of the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) paradox and one of the most counterintuitive phenomena in the view of classical physics [1]. Hong-Ou-Mandel (HOM) [2] and Franson interferences [3] are regarded as important evidence of the non-classical nature of photon sources. Since a two-photon interference experiment with time-energy entangled photons was proposed by J. D. Franson [2], the fourth-order interferences beyond the one-photon coherence length have attracted considerable attention as important and interesting quantum phenomena in quantum optics. Surprisingly, Franson interference has been not experimentally demonstrated by use of two-photon pairs emitted from a cascade-type atomic system with continuous wave (CW) pumping, as originally proposed by Franson.
We experimentally demonstrate two-photon interference of a time-energy entangled photon pair generated via collective two-photon coherence in Doppler-broadened cascade-type ^{87}Rb atoms. The two photons originally proposed by J. D. Franson are realized as a photon pair due to collective effects, which are generated from the cascade atomic system with a relatively long lifetime of the initial state and a considerably shorter lifetime of the intermediate state. The achievement of two-photon interference with photon-pair sources generated from inhomogeneous atomic ensembles constitutes an important result for time-energy entanglement based on an atom-photon interaction.
We report the demonstration of a second-order interference experiment by use of thermal light emitted from a warm atomic ensemble in two spatially separated unbalanced Michelson interferometers (UMIs). This novel multipath correlation interference with thermal light has been theoretically proposed by Tamma [ New J. Phys. 18 , 032002 ( 2016 ) NJOPFM 1367-2630 10.1088/1367-2630/18/3/032002 ]. In our experiment, the bright thermal light used for second-order interference is superradiantly emitted via collective two-photon coherence in Doppler-broadened cascade-type Rb 87 atoms. Owing to the long coherence time of the thermal light from the atomic ensemble, we observe its second-order interference in the two independent UMIs by means of time-resolved coincidence detection. The temporal waveforms of the interfering thermal light in the two spatially separated UMIs exhibit similarities with the temporal two-photon waveform of time–energy entangled photon pairs in Franson interferometry. Our results can contribute toward a better understanding of the relation between first- and second-order interferences that are at the heart of photonics-based quantum information science.
The phenomenon of Franson interference with time-energy entangled photon pairs beyond the single-photon coherence length observed upon nonlocal measurement at two space-like separated locations is of particular research interest. Herein, we determine the coherence length of temporally separated pairwise two-photon (TSPT) states of thermal photons emitted from a warm atomic ensemble in Franson-type interferometry, with the setup consisting of two spatially separated unbalanced Michelson interferometers beyond the coherence length of a thermal photon. Using a novel method of square-modulated thermal photons, we show that the sinusoidal Franson-type interference fringe of thermal photons is determined by the presence or absence of TSPT states (corresponding to the time delay between the long and short paths in Franson-type interferometry). We find that the indistinguishability of the TSPT state in the Franson-type interference is independent of the temporal separation of the thermal photons in the TSPT states.
Abstract The realization of high-quality and stable entangled states is crucial for the advancement of quantum information science and technology. The entangled photons generated from a warm atomic ensemble exhibit high spectral purity and indistinguishability, offering significant potential for atom–photon-based quantum networks. We report high-quality time–frequency entangled continuous-wave (CW) photon pairs via a spontaneous four-wave mixing process in the cascade-type atomic transition of 5S 1/2 –5P 3/2 –5D 5/2 from a warm 87 Rb atomic ensemble. We observed Franson interference with the visibility of 99.6(8) % using two independent Franson interferometers, obtained by post-selecting the temporally indistinguishable two-photon events. The interferometer phases were actively stabilized using the reference laser frequency-locked to the 133 Cs (6S 1/2 -6P 3/2 ) transition. Beyond stabilizing the interferometers, the active control of these phases allowed us to measure the CHSH S -value directly and achieve a near-maximal Bell inequality violation with S = 2.83(7). This result demonstrates that warm atomic ensembles can serve as bright sources of time–frequency entanglement, which combined with active interferometer stabilization enable stable high-visibility operation for practical applications in quantum network.
We experimentally demonstrate nonlocal two-photon interference of energy-time entangled photon pairs via spontaneous four-wave mixing (SFWM) process in Doppler-broadened ladder-type 87Rb^{87}\mathrm{Rb}87Rb atoms. The Doppler-broadened ladder-type atomic system offers collective two-photon coherence which results in strong temporal correlation between the entangled photons. The spacelike separated photon pairs clearly show nonlocal two-photon interference with high visibility of $97.1\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}2.5%$, which violates the Bell-CHSH (Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt) inequality by 10.5 standard deviations, in which the travel time of a single-photon towards the interferometer is much longer than the coincidence window. Our work will provide an atom-based entangled photon source which is applicable for long distance atom-memory-based quantum communication.