Quantum state engineering of light with continuous-wave optical parametric oscillators

Abstract

The ability to engineer the quantum state of traveling optical fields is a central requirement for quantum information science and technology, including quantum communication, computing and metrology. In this video article, we describe the reliable generation of non-Gaussian states, including single-photon states and coherent state superpositions, using a conditional preparation method operated on the non-classical light emitted by optical parametric oscillators. Type-I and type-II phase-matched OPOs operated below threshold, i.e. single-mode or two-mode squeezed vacuum sources, are considered and common procedures, such as the required frequency filtering or the high-efficiency quantum state characterization by homodyning, are detailed. The reported method enables a high fidelity with the targeted state and the generation of the state in a well-controlled spatiotemporal mode, a crucial feature for their use in subsequent protocols.

Written in JoVE style. Video available on chistera-qscale.eu/jove.html

References in corpus (7)

• Photonic quantum technologies
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• Multiphoton Quantum Optics and Quantum State Engineering
• Generation of Optical Coherent State Superpositions by Number-Resolved Photon Subtraction from Squeezed Vacuum
• Full characterization of Gaussian bipartite entangled states by a single homodyne detector
• A high-fidelity single-photon source based on a type-II optical parametric oscillator
• Effect of the heralding detector properties on the conditional generation of single-photon states

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Optical synthesis of large-amplitude squeezed coherent-state superpositions with minimal resources
• High-efficiency WSi superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors for quantum state engineering in the near infrared
• Microcontroller-based locking in optics experiments
• Witnessing single-photon entanglement with local homodyne measurements: analytical bounds and robustness to losses