Complete temporal characterization of a single photon

Abstract

Precise information about the temporal mode of optical states is crucial for optimizing their interaction efficiency between themselves and/or with matter in various quantum communication devices. Here we propose and experimentally demonstrate a method of determining both the real and imaginary components of a single photon's temporal density matrix by measuring the autocorrelation function of the photocurrent from a balanced homodyne detector at multiple local oscillator frequencies. We test our method on single photons heralded from biphotons generated via four-wave mixing in an atomic vapor and obtain excellent agreement with theoretical predictions for several settings.

8 pages, 6 figures. Accepted by Light: Science & Applications. In press

References in corpus (3)

• Electro-Optic Modulation of Single Photons
• Spectral density matrix of a single photon measured
• Non-Gaussian states from continuous-wave Gaussian light sources

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Generation of highly pure Schrödinger's cat states and real-time quadrature measurements via optical filtering
• Generating quantum correlated twin beams by four-wave mixing in hot cesium vapor
• Entanglement detection on an NMR quantum information processor using random local measurements
• Optimal control for perfect state transfer in linear quantum memory
• Wigner spectrum and coherent feedback control of continuous-mode single-photon Fock states