Single Photon in an Interferometer

P. Hariharan

Hailong Liu, Minjie Wang, Jiaxin Bao +4 more

A single-photon interferometer is a fundamental element in quantum information science. In most previously reported works, single-photon interferometers use an active feedback locking system to stabilize the relative phase between two arms of the interferometer. Here, we use a pair of beam displacers to construct a passively stable single-photon interferometer. The relative phase stabilization between the two arms is achieved by stabilizing the temperature of the beam displacers. A purely polarized single-photon-level pulse is directed into the interferometer input port. By analyzing and measuring the polarization states of the single-photon pulse at the output port, the achieved polarization fidelity of the interferometer is about 99.1±0.1%. Our passively stabilized single-photon interferometer provides a key element for generating high-fidelity entanglement between a photon and atomic memory.

Ricardo Asch Campos

Kaoru Shimizu, Nobuyuki Imoto

We propose a single-photon interferometer which provides cryptographic quantum communication equivalent to that obtained using a pair of polarization entangled photon twins as a carrier [Phys. Rev. A 60, 157 (1999)]. Instead of manipulating and measuring the internal states of entangled photon twins, cryptographic quantum communication is possible by manipulating a single photon in an extended interferometer. The use of the single-photon interferometer offers significant experimental advantages compared to our previous approach.

Jiabei Fan, Yuechun Jiao, Changcheng Li +3 more

We demonstrate a robust single-photon Ramsey interferometer based on a single Rydberg excitation, where the photon is stored as a Rydberg polariton in an ensemble of atoms. This coherent conversion of the photon to Rydberg polariton enables to split an incoming photon into a superposition state of two Rydberg states by applying microwave fields, which constructs two paths of interferometer. Ramsey interference fringes are demonstrated when we scan either the detuning of the microwave or the free evolution time, from which we can obtain the resonant transition frequency of two Rydberg states. We use the Ramsey-like sequence to demonstrate coherent manipulation of the stored single-photon to construct different interference patterns. In addition, the robustness of the Ramsey interferometer to the fluctuation of incoming photon numbers and optical depth (OD) of the atomic ensemble is tested, showing that the coherent of Ramsey interferometer is preserved for input photon number in a range of R in < 15 and for OD varying from 1.0 to 4.0. The robust interferometer will find its applications in quantum precision measurement.

Gregg S. Jaeger, Alexander V. Sergienko