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Photonics Research

Antibunching and superbunching photon correlations in pseudo-natural light

Zhiyuan Ye, Haibo Wang, Jun Xiong, Kaige Wang

Published Jan 7, 2022• 16 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Since Hanbury Brown and Twiss revealed the photon bunching effect of a thermal light source in 1956, almost all studies in correlation optics have been based on light’s intensity fluctuation, regardless of fact that the polarization fluctuation is a basic attribute of natural light. In this work, we uncover the veil of the polarization fluctuation and corresponding photon correlations by proposing a new light source model, termed pseudo-natural light, embodying both intensity and polarization fluctuations. Unexpectedly, the strong antibunching and superbunching effects can be simultaneously realized in such a new source, whose second-order correlation coefficient g ( 2 ) can be continuously modulated across 1. For the symmetric Bernoulli distribution of the polarization fluctuation, particularly, g ( 2 ) can be in principle from 0 to unlimitedly large. In pseudo-natural light, while the bunching effects of both intensity and polarization fluctuations enhance the bunching to superbunching photon correlation, the antibunching correlation of the polarization fluctuation can also be extracted through the procedure of division operation in the experiment. The antibunching effect and the combination with the bunching one will arouse new applications in quantum imaging. As heuristic examples, we carry out high-quality positive or negative ghost imaging, and devise high-efficiency polarization-sensitive and edge-enhanced imaging. This work, therefore, sheds light on the development of multiple and broad correlation functions for natural light.

DOI
10.1364/prj.446935

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Since Hanbury Brown and Twiss revealed the photon bunching effect of a thermal light source in 1956, almost all studies in correlation optics have been based on light’s intensity fluctuation, regardless of fact that the polarization fluctuation is a basic attribute of natural light. In this work, we uncover the veil of the polarization fluctuation and corresponding photon correlations by proposing a new light source model, termed pseudo-natural light, embodying both intensity and polarization fluctuations. Unexpectedly, the strong antibunching and superbunching effects can be simultaneously realized in such a new source, whose second-order correlation coefficient g ( 2 ) can be continuously modulated across 1. For the symmetric Bernoulli distribution of the polarization fluctuation, particularly, g ( 2 ) can be in principle from 0 to unlimitedly large. In pseudo-natural light, while the bunching effects of both intensity and polarization fluctuations enhance the bunching to superbunching photon correlation, the antibunching correlation of the polarization fluctuation can also be extracted through the procedure of division operation in the experiment. The antibunching effect and the combination with the bunching one will arouse new applications in quantum imaging. As heuristic examples, we carry out high-quality positive or negative ghost imaging, and devise high-efficiency polarization-sensitive and edge-enhanced imaging. This work, therefore, sheds light on the development of multiple and broad correlation functions for natural light.
Two-photon bunching and superbunching are important to understanding the physics of ghost imaging and second-order interference of light. With the help of the recently proposed superbunching pseudothermal light, the physics of bunching and superbunching in superbunching pseudothermal light is studied in detail. A special two-photon coincidence count detection system is designed to measure the required two-photon coincidence counts. It is concluded that the two-photon superbunching effect cannot be observed without taking the intensity changing process into account. A similar conclusion holds for two-photon bunching of thermal light. The conclusions are helpful for understanding of the physics of two-photon bunching and superbunching in intensity or photon number fluctuation correlation theory.
Thermal light by nature exhibits the well-known photon bunching effect with the zero-delay second-order correlation coefficient g(2){g}^{(2)}g(2) ideally equal to 2. The Photon extra-bunching effect, as a special class of the superbunching effect (g(2)>2{g}^{(2)}>2g(2)>2), describes the enhanced photon correlation (g(2)=3{g}^{(2)}=3g(2)=3) through the interference of bright twin beams produced in the spontaneous parametric down-conversion. In this work, we report that this effect can exist in classical beams and that g(2){g}^{(2)}g(2) can approach 4 in some extended extreme models. We experimentally demonstrate the nontrivial extra-bunching correlation ($\ensuremath{\sim}1.4\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}$ gain) in pairwise-generated holographic thermal light beams with a Dove prism-embedded balanced Mach-Zehnder interferometer. The interaction of such a pair of conjugated thermal light beams can generate a pair of uncorrelated superthermal light beams, enabling ghost imaging and Young's intensity interference with enhanced visibility. The quantum-inspired interference-induced spatial extra-bunching effect provides novel insights into inducing superbunching correlation in classical light and holds the potential for application in the coherent two-photon Lidar system to enhance sensitivity.
We proposed to boost the photon bunching effect of classical light via a modified Fabry-Pérot cavity with one of the cavity mirrors being replaced by a spatial light modulator, through which multiple independent transverse modulations, each was to encode independently spatially correlated phase on the wave front of the light field, was cascaded in sequence in the longitudinal propagation direction in the cavity. The two-photon bunching peak and the three-photon bunching peak of the generated superbunching light field were measured to be 36.9±2.036.9\pm2.036.9±2.0 and (2.46±0.12)×103\rm (2.46\pm0.12)\times10^{3}(2.46±0.12)×103, respectively, which, as compared to those of thermal light, were improved by one-order and three-order of magnitude, respectively. Correspondingly, the ghost image visibility reconstructed with the superbunching light was demonstrated experimentally to be improved by ∼40\sim 40∼40 times as compared to that with the pseudo-thermal light. Such classical superbunching light field is of essential importance not only for fundamental physics but also for potential applications such as correlated imaging, ghost interference and nonlinear optics.
Photon statistics divides light sources into three different categories, characterized by bunched, antibunched, or uncorrelated photon arrival times. Single atoms, ions, molecules, or solid state emitters display antibunching of photons, while classical thermal sources exhibit photon bunching. Here we demonstrate a light source in free space, where the photon statistics depends on the direction of observation, undergoing a continuous crossover between photon bunching and antibunching. We employ two trapped ions, observe their fluorescence under continuous laser light excitation, and record spatially resolved the autocorrelation function g^{(2)}(τ) with a movable Hanbury Brown and Twiss detector. Varying the detector position we find a minimum value for antibunching, g^{(2)}(0)=0.60(5) and a maximum of g^{(2)}(0)=1.46(8) for bunching, demonstrating that this source radiates fundamentally different types of light alike. The observed variation of the autocorrelation function is understood in the Dicke model from which the observed maximum and minimum values can be modeled, taking independently measured experimental parameters into account.
Abstract Photon superbunching, with second-order coherence far beyond the Gaussian thermal limit, is a valuable resource for quantum optics and correlation-based imaging. However, existing sources often rely on fragile platforms, inefficient nonlinear conversion, or mechanically complex architectures. Here, we demonstrate the first highly stable, fully fiber-integrated superbunched random fiber laser that provides a broadly tunable source of giant photon bunching. We establish a cooperative linear–nonlinear mechanism in which Rayleigh-scattering-mediated diffusion provides distributed random feedback, while cascaded stimulated Brillouin scattering and quasi-phase-matched four-wave mixing amplify and redistribute stochastic intensity fluctuations across a spectral comb. This enables continuous tuning of g (2) (0) from approximately 1 to 28 via tailored modulation of linear diffusion strength and nonlinear coupling magnitude. Moreover, by combining photon-correlation measurements with Parisi-overlap analysis, we reveal an inverse correlation between disorder-induced photonic phase evolution and microscopic photon bunching, bridging macroscopic disordered-cavity dynamics and high-order photon statistics. Furthermore, we demonstrate that strongly superbunched light enables temporal ghost imaging with comparable reconstruction fidelity while requiring more than an order-of-magnitude fewer realizations than weakly bunched light. Together, these results establish a fiber-integrated route to engineering giant photon superbunching and high-order light statistics for correlation-based photonic technologies.
Spatial anti-bunching, in contrast to the well-known bunching behavior observed in classical light sources, describes a situation where photons tend to avoid each other in space, resulting in a reduced probability of detecting two or more photons in proximity. This anti-bunching effect, a hallmark of nonclassical light, signifies a deviation from classical intensity fluctuations and has been observed not only in free electrons and entangled photon pairs but also in chaotic-thermal light. This work investigates the generation mechanism of spatial anti-bunching correlation in random light fields, leveraging the wandering of light centers to induce a second-order coherence degree below unity. Unlike traditional Gaussian Schell-model partially coherent light, this work predicts the emergence of two fundamentally distinct orbital angular momentum states, arising from the inherent differences between rigid body rotation and fluid-like rotation in the wandering light. These predictions are supported by experimental evidence. Based on these findings, we propose a resolution-enhanced lensless ghost imaging system as an application example. Experimental results indicate that the adoption of the anti-bunching correlated light field as the illumination source enables the imaging system to attain super-resolution imaging capabilities. Our findings provide new insights into the utilization of anti-correlated light fields for precision imaging and detection applications.