Classical and Non-classical Photon States—From Single Photons to Beams of Light

Thomas P. Pearsall

Supratik Sarkar, Jinjin Du, Michal Bajcsy

Sahar Basiri-Esfahani, Casey R. Myers, Joshua Combes +1 more

Optomechanical systems typically use light to control the quantum state of a mechanical resonator. In this paper, we propose a scheme for controlling the quantum state of light using the mechanical degree of freedom as a controlled beam splitter. Preparing the mechanical resonator in non-classical states enables an optomechanical Stern–Gerlach interferometer. When the mechanical resonator has a small coherent amplitude it acts as a quantum control, entangling the optical and mechanical degrees of freedom. As the coherent amplitude of the resonator increases, we recover single photon and two-photon interference via a classically controlled beam splitter. The visibility of the two-photon interference is particularly sensitive to coherent excitations in the mechanical resonator and this could form the basis of an optically transduced weak-force sensor.

Javier Rivera-Dean

G. Maltese, J. Belhassen, Saverio Francesconi +4 more

I present our last results on AlGaAs photonic devices emitting non-classical states of light at room temperature: monolithic integration of heralded single photon sources and beam splitters and engineering of frequency qudits and non-Gaussian entanglement.

Arthur D. Yaghjian