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Optics Express

Extending the quantum tomography of a quasi-photon-number-resolving detector

Ted Silva Santana, Christian Daniel Muñoz, Robert A. Starkwood, Christopher J. Chunnilall

Published Apr 23, 2024• 7 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The ability to discriminate the number of photons in a radiation field has a critical role in the implementation of quantum optical technologies. True photon-number-resolving detectors are rare and complex devices, while a quasi-photon-number-resolving detector (qPNRD) is a practical alternative for real-world applications. Our qPNRD is composed of a fiber demultiplexer and individual non-photon-number-resolving detectors. We perform quantum tomography on our qPNRD based on the positive operator-valued measure and extend the analysis using the Bayesian formalism to uncover how the measurement influences knowledge of the measured photon probability distribution.

DOI
10.1364/oe.517309

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The ability to discriminate the number of photons in a radiation field has a critical role in the implementation of quantum optical technologies. True photon-number-resolving detectors are rare and complex devices, while a quasi-photon-number-resolving detector (qPNRD) is a practical alternative for real-world applications. Our qPNRD is composed of a fiber demultiplexer and individual non-photon-number-resolving detectors. We perform quantum tomography on our qPNRD based on the positive operator-valued measure and extend the analysis using the Bayesian formalism to uncover how the measurement influences knowledge of the measured photon probability distribution.
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Superconducting nanostrip photon detectors have been used as single-photon detectors, which can discriminate only photons' presence or absence. It has recently been found that they can discriminate the number of photons by analyzing the output signal waveform, and they are expected to be used in various fields, especially in optical-quantum-information processing. Here, we improve the photon-number-resolving performance for light with a high-average photon number by pattern matching of the output signal waveform. Furthermore, we estimate the positive-operator-valued measure of the detector by a quantum detector tomography. The result shows that the device has photon-number-resolving performance up to five photons without any multiplexing or arraying, indicating that it is useful as a photon-number-resolving detector.
Photon number resolving detectors are the ultimate measurement of quantum optics, which is the reason why developing the technology is getting significant attention in recent years. With this arises the question of how to evaluate the performance of the detectors. We suggest that performance of a photon number detector can be evaluated by comparing it to a multiplex of on-off detectors in a practical scenario: conditional preparation of a photon number state. Here, both the quality of the prepared state and the probability of the preparation are limited by the number of on-off detectors in the multiplex, which allows us to set benchmarks that can be achieved or surpassed by the photon number resolving detectors.
Photon-number-resolving (PNR) detectors are essential components of photonic quantum technologies, yet thus far, no practical metric exists to certify how many photons they can genuinely resolve in a single measurement. Here we introduce an operational framework for quantifying the capability of a PNR detector to distinguish between different numbers of photons, i.e. its genuine resolution. In turn, we develop a practical and scalable protocol for certifying the genuine resolution of a detector, which is based on coherent state probes. We apply the method to a 28-pixel photon-number-resolving superconducting nanowire single-photon detector (PNR-SNSPD) and certify genuine four-outcome resolution. Our work highlights the critical requirements in terms of detector efficiency towards achieving high genuine resolution. This approach provides an operational benchmark for PNR detectors and fills a crucial gap in the characterization of photonic quantum devices.