Tomography of the temporal-spectral state of subnatural-linewidth single photons from atomic ensembles

Abstract

Subnatural-linewidth single-photon source is a potential candidate for exploring the time degree of freedom in photonic quantum information science. This type of single-photon source has been demonstrated to be generated and reshaped in atomic ensembles without any external cavity or filter, and is typically characterized through photon-counting technology. However, the full complex temporal mode function(TMF) of the photon source is not able to be revealed from direct photon counting measurement. Here, for the first time, we demonstrate the complete temporal mode of the subnatural-linewidth single photons generated from a cold atomic cloud. Through heterodyne detection between the single photon and a local oscillator with various central frequencies, we recover the temporal density matrix of the single photons at resolvable time bins. Further we demonstrate that the reduced autocorrelation function measured through homodyne detection perfectly reveals the pure temporal-spectral state of the subnatural-linewidth single photons.

arXiv comment6 pages, 3 figures

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Cited by in corpus (11)

• Generation of sub-MHz and spectrally-bright biphotons from hot atomic vapors with a phase mismatch-free scheme
• Room-temperature biphoton source with a spectral brightness near the ultimate limit
• Temporally-ultralong biphotons with a linewidth of 50 kHz
• $\delta$-Quench measurement of quantum wavefunction
• Uncorrelated photon pair generation from an integrated silicon nitride resonator measured by time resolved coincidence detection
• Temporal profile of biphotons generated from a hot atomic vapor and spectrum of electromagnetically induced transparency
• Direct measurement of ultrafast temporal wavefunctions
• Direct measurement of density-matrix elements using a phase-shifting technique Tianfeng
• Accurate photonic temporal mode analysis with reduced resources
• Protecting Heralded Single Photons Generated from Double-$\Lambda$ Biphoton Sources with Doppler-Broadened Atomic Media
• Subnatural-linewidth fluorescent single photons