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Frontiers in Optics

The Effects of Detector Efficiency when Heralding on the Detection of Zero Photons

Cory M. Nunn, J. D. Franson, T. B. Pittman

Published Jan 1, 2021• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Reliable detection of zero photons is important for quantum information applications but presents unique experimental challenges. We demonstrate the role of detector efficiency when “heralding on zero” using a modified Hong-Ou-Mandel interferometer.
DOI
10.1364/fio.2021.jw7a.20

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Although heralding signals in quantum optics experiments are typically based on the detection of exactly one photon, it has recently been theoretically shown that heralding based on the detection of zero photons can be useful in a number of quantum information applications. Here we experimentally investigate a technique for ``heralding on zero photons'' using conventional single-photon detectors. We illustrate how detector efficiency and dark count rates play a counterintuitive role in the ability to accurately detect zero photons, and we use a variant of the Hong-Ou-Mandel interferometer to study the deleterious effects of limited detector efficiency when heralding on zero.
A peak in coincidence events has been observed in a modified Hong-Ou-Mandel interferometer fed with weak coherent states inside the region of overlapping wave-packets. The inversion of the usual interference pattern represented by the HOM dip is equally observed when the wave packets are frequency displaced. The higher rate of coincidences indicates that photons are more likely to take on different output paths of the interferometer. This effect was harnessed so a detection on one of the arms could herald the presence of a photon in the other. The second order autocorrelation function at zero time was experimentally determined by means of the Hanburry-Brown and Twiss experiment and its value below 1 confirmed the sub-Poisson photon statistics of the heralded states.
The challenging requirements of large scale quantum information processing using parametric heralded single photon sources involve maximizing the interference visibility while maintaining an acceptable photon generation rate. By developing a general theoretical framework that allows us to include a large number of spatial and spectral modes together with linear and non-linear optical elements, we investigate the combined effects of spectral and photon number impurity on the measured Hong–Ou–Mandel interference visibility of parametric photon sources, considering both threshold and number resolving detectors, together with the effects of spectral filtering. We find that for any degree of spectral impurity, increasing the photon generation rate necessarily decreases the interference visibility, even when using number resolving detection. While tight spectral filtering can be used to enforce spectral purity and increased interference visibility at low powers, we find that the induced photon number impurity results in a decreasing interference visibility and heralding efficiency with pump power, while the maximum generation rate is also reduced.