We demonstrate the generation of non-diffracting heralded single photons, i.e. which are characterized by a single-photon transverse intensity distribution which remains essentially unchanged over a significant propagation distance. For this purpose we have relied on the process of spontaneous parametric downconversion (SPDC) for the generation of signal and idler photon pairs, where our SPDC crystal is pumped by a Bessel-Gauss (BG) beam. Our experiment shows that the well-understood non-diffracting behavior of a BG beam may be directly mapped to the signal-mode, single photons heralded by the detection of a single idler photon. In our experiment, the heralded single photon is thus arranged to be non-diffracting without the need for projecting its single-photon transverse amplitude, post-generation, in any manner.
In the present work the model of a single-atom laser generating in the regime when incoherent pumping rate coincides with the cavity decay rate is theoretically investigated. Using the stationary equation for the phase averaged Glauber P function the analytical expressions for mean number of photons and its dispersion are obtained. In the limiting case of the strong-coupling regime the exact expression for the photon number distribution function is found. Obtained results describe the sub-Poissonian photon statistics and show an increase in mean number of photons to non-zero value when the pum…
Photon statistics is one of the key properties of the photon state for the study of quantum coherence and quantum information techniques. Here, we discuss the photon indistinguishability induced bunching effect which can significantly change photon statistics. Through the measurement of the second-order degree of coherence of a mixed photon state composed of a single-photon state and a weak coherent state, the statistical transition from a classical behavior to a nonclassical behavior is experimentally demonstrated by modifying the indistinguishability of the two-photon states. The study will …
The interferometer is one of the most important devices for revealing the nature of light and for precision optical metrology. Though lots of experiments were performed for probing photons behaviors in various configurations, a complete study of photons behavior in a birefringent interferometer has not ever been performed. Based on an environmental turbulence immune Mach-Zehnder interferometer, tunable photonic beatings by rotating a birefringent crystal versus the temperature of the crystal for both single-photon and two-photon are observed. Furthermore, the two-photon interference fringes be…
In this study, we observe the nonlinear behavior of the two-photon geometric phase for polarization states using time-correlated photons pairs. This phase manifests as a shift of two-photon interference fringes. Under certain arrangements, the geometric phase can vary nonlinearly and become very sensitive to a change in the polarization state. Moreover, it is known that the geometric phase for $N$ identically polarized photons is $N$ times larger than that for one photon. Thus, the geometric phase for two photons can become two times more sensitive to a state change. This high sensitivity to a…
The parity-time ($\mathcal{PT}$) symmetric structures have exhibited potential applications in developing various robust quantum devices. In an optical trimmer with balanced loss and gain, we analytically study the $\mathcal{PT}$ symmetric phase transition by investigating the spontaneous symmetric breaking. We also illustrate the single-photon transmission behaviors in both of the $\mathcal{PT}$ symmetric and $\mathcal{PT}$ symmetry broken phases. We find (i) the non-periodical dynamics of single-photon transmission in the $\mathcal{PT}$ symmetry broken phase instead of $\mathcal{PT}$ symmetr…
Here we report and discuss the avalanche-like up-conversion behavior in absence of the avalanche. We experimentally observed significant changes in the slope of the curve for the intensity dependence of up-conversion luminescence of erbium ions in green band on the pump intensity of the diode laser. Such changes are typical for the photon avalanche. However, the concentration of erbium ions is insufficient for an efficient exchange of energy between them, and excitation of a photon avalanche is not possible. Using a simple three-level approximation of the up-conversion process model, we have s…
We demonstrate that single-photon as well as biphoton revivals are possible in a new class of dynamic optical systems-the so-called Glauber-Fock oscillator lattices. In these arrays, both Bloch-like oscillations and dynamic delocalization can occur which can be described in closed form. The bunching and anti-bunching response of path-entangled photons can be pre-engineered in such coupled optical arrangements and the possibility of emulating Fermionic behavior in this family of lattices is also considered. We elucidate these effects via pertinent examples and we discuss the prospect of experim…
We propose a simple implementation scheme of quantum delayed-choice experiment in linear optical system without initial entanglement resource. By choosing different detecting devices, one can selectively observe the photon's different behaviors after the photon has been passed the Mach-Zehnder interferometer. The scheme shows that the photon's wave behavior and particle behavior can be observed with a single experimental setup by postselection, that is, the photon can show the superposition behavior of wave and particle. Especially, we compare the wave-particle superposition behavior and the w…
The behavior of a single molecule driven simultaneously by a laser and by an electric radio frequency field is investigated using a non-Hermitian Hamiltonian approach. Employing the renormalization group method for differential equations we calculate the average waiting time for the first photon emission event to occur, and determine the conditions for the suppression and enhancement of photon emission. An abrupt transition from localization-like behavior to delocalization behavior is found.
When two-photon interactions are induced by down-converted light with a bandwidth that exceeds the pump bandwidth, they can obtain a behavior that is pulse-like temporally, yet spectrally narrow. At low photon fluxes this behavior reflects the time and energy entanglement between the down-converted photons. However, two-photon interactions such as two-photon absorption (TPA) and sum-frequency generation (SFG) can exhibit such a behavior even at high power levels, as long as the final state (i.e. the atomic level in TPA, or the generated light in SFG) is narrowband enough. This behavior does no…
A key question of quantum optics is how nonclassical bi-photon correlations at low power evolve into classical coherence at high-power. Direct observation of the crossover from quantum to classical behavior is desirable, but difficult due to the lack of adequate experimental techniques that cover the ultra-wide dynamic range in photon flux from the single photon regime to the classical level. We investigate bi-photon correlations within the spectrum of light generated by broadband four-wave mixing (FWM) over a \emph{large dynamic range of $\sim80dB$ in photon flux} across the classical-to-quan…
Light's wave-particle duality is at the heart of quantum mechanics and can be well illustrated by Wheeler's delayed-choice experiment. The choice of inserting or removing the second classical (quantum) beam splitter in a Mach-Zehnder interferometer determines the classical (quantum) wave-particle behaviors of a photon. In this paper, we report our experiment using the classical beam splitter to observe the simultaneous wave-particle behaviors in the wave-packet of a narrowband single photon. This observation suggests that it is necessary to generalize the current quantum wave-particle duality …
A system of two interacting photon modes, without constraints on the photon number, in the presence of a Kerr nonlinearity, exhibits BEC if the transfer amplitude is greater than the mode frequency. A symmetry-breaking field (SBF) can be introduced by taking into account a classical electron current. The ground state, in the limit of small nonlinearity, becomes a squeezed state, and thus the modes become entangled. The smaller is the SBF, the greater is entanglement. Superfluid-like behavior is observed in the study of entanglement growth from an initial coherent state, since in the short-time…
Hybrid interfaces between distinct quantum systems play a major role in the implementation of quantum networks. Quantum states have to be stored in memories to synchronize the photon arrival times for entanglement swapping by projective measurements in quantum repeaters or for entanglement purification. Here, we analyze the distortion of a single photon wave packet propagating through a dispersive and absorptive medium with high spectral resolution. Single photons are generated from a single In(Ga)As quantum dot with its excitonic transition precisely set relative to the Cesium D1 transition. …
The symmetrization postulate asserts that the state of particular species of particles can only be of one permutation symmetry type: symmetric for bosons and antisymmetric for fermions. We report some experimental results showing that pairs of photons indistinguishable by all degrees of freedom can exhibit not only a bosonic behavior, as expected for photons, but also a surprisingly sharp fermionic behavior under specific conditions.
We investigate the quantum-to-classical crossover of a dissipative optical cavity mode based on measurement of the correlations between two atoms which do not interact with each other, but interact with the cavity mode. Firstly, we note that there is a time window where the mode has a classical behavior, which depends on the cavity decay rate, the atom-field coupling strength and the number of atoms. Then, considering only two atoms inside the cavity and working in the steady state of the system, we note that the entanglement between the atoms disappears with the increasing the mean number of …
In this work we experimentally demonstrate for the first time a recently proposed criterion adressed to detect nonclassical behavior in the fluorescence emission of ensembles of single-photon emitters. In particular, we apply the method to study clusters of NV centres in diamond observed via single-photon-sensitive confocal microscopy. Theoretical considerations on the behavior of the parameter at any arbitrary order in presence of poissonian noise are presented and, finally, the opportunity of detecting manifold coincidences is discussed.
In this work, we analyze the behavior of continuum single-photon pulses in some quantum communication schemes. In particular, we consider the single-photon interference in a Mach-Zenhder interferometer, the HOM interference and the quantum bit commitment protocol.
Nowadays the most intriguing features of wave particle complementarity of single photon is exemplified by the famous Wheeler's delayed choice experiment in linear optics, nuclear magnetic resonance and integrated photonic device systems. Studying the wave particle behavior in light and matter interaction at single photon level is challenging and interesting, which gives how single photons complement in light and matter interaction. Here, we demonstrate a Wheeler's delayed choice experiment in an interface of light and atomic memory, in which the cold atomic memory makes the heralded single pho…
We study an array of coupled optical cavities in presence of two-photon driving and dissipation. The system displays a critical behavior similar to that of a quantum Ising model at finite temperature. Using the corner-space renormalization method, we compute the steady-state properties of finite lattices of varying size, both in one- and two-dimensions. From a finite-size scaling of the average of the photon number parity, we highlight the emergence of a critical point in regimes of small dissipations, belonging to the quantum Ising universality class. For increasing photon loss rates, a depar…
In the year 2013, Danan et al. published a paper [Phys. Rev. Lett. 111, 240402 (2013)] demonstrating a counterintuitive behavior of photons in nested Mach-Zehnder interferometers. The authors then proposed an explanation based on the two-state vector formalism. This experiment and the authors' explanation raised a vivid debate within the scientific community. In this paper, we contribute to the ongoing debate by presenting an alternative experimental implementation of the Danan et al. scheme. We show that no counterintuitive behavior is observed when performing direct spectrally-resolved detec…
The behavior of an atomic double lambda system in the presence of a strong off-resonant classical field and a few-photon resonant quantum field is examined. It is shown that the system possesses properties that allow a single-photon state to be distilled from a multi-photon input wave packet. In addition, the system is also capable of functioning as an efficient photodetector discriminating between one- and two-photon wave packets with arbitrarily high efficiency.
We show that the quantum angle measurement for x-polarized photon number states results in an angle which will never correspond to the y-axis for an odd number of photons; yet for an even number of photons it always can. The analogy of this surprising effect for other particles or ions (qubits in their spin up state) is presented and we show why such an effect cannot be observed in a standard SU(2) interferometer. The quantum phase representation of such an interferometer provides clues as to how its apparatus might be modified in order to demonstrate these phenomena. The same representation i…
We studied the quantum correlation between the photon pairs generated by biexciton cascade decays of self-assembled quantum dots, and determined the temperature behavior associated with so-called sudden change of the quantum correlation. The relationship between the fine structure splitting and the sudden change temperature is also provided. Our study indicates that this correlation behavior sudden change temperature is independent on the back ground noise in the system and far lower than entanglement sudden death temperature, therefore it should be easier to observe the phenomenon of correlat…
An experiment is presented in which the alleged progression of a photon's wave function is ``measured'' by a row of superposed atoms. The photon's wave function affects only one out of the atoms, regardless of its position within the row, thereby manifesting not only non-local but also non-sequential characteristics. It also turns out that, out of n atoms, each one has a probability which is higher than the normal 1/n to be the single affected one.
The simple algorithm for the simulation and visualization of non relativistic quantum dynamics is proposed that is based on a collective behavior of classical particles. Any quantum particle is represented as the swarm of its classical samples which interact by simple rules including emission and absorption of samples of tied photons. The quantum dynamics results from the collective behavior of such a swarm where the eigenstates are treated as the equilibrium states relatively to emission-absorption of photons. The entanglement is treated as a correlation between samples of the different swarm…
We explore theoretically the bistable behavior of intracavity photon number in a two-mode cavity optomechanical system, where two cavity modes are coupled to a common mechanical resonator. When the two cavity modes are driven by two pump laser beams, respectively, we find that the optical bistability can be controlled by tuning the power and frequency of the pump beams. The common interaction to a mechanical mode enables one to control the bistable behavior in one cavity by adjusting the pump laser beam driving another cavity. We also show that both branches of optical bistability at photon nu…
The complementarity of single-photon's particle-like and wave-like behaviors can be described by the inequality $D^2+V^2 \leq 1$, with $D$ being the path distinguishability and $V$ being the fringe visibility. In this paper, we generalize this duality relation to multi-photon case, where two new concepts, higher order distinguishability and higher order fringe visibility, are introduced to quantify the higher order particle-like and wave-like behaviors of multi-photons.
Wheeler's delayed-choice experiment delays the decision to observe either the wave or particle behavior of a photon until after it has entered the interferometer, and the quantum delayed-choice experiment provides the possibility of observing the wave and particle behavior simultaneously by introducing quantum control device. We here propose a modified quantum delayed-choice experiment without quantum control or entanglement assistance, in which a photon can be prepared in a wave-particle superposition state and the morphing behavior of wave-to-particle transition can be observed easily. It is…
Single-photon detectors, like Avalanche Photo Diodes (APDs), have a great importance in many fields like quantum key distribution, laser ranging, florescence microscopy, etc. Afterpulsing is a typical non ideal behavior of APDs, operated in Geiger mode, which adversely affects any application which measures the number or timing of detection events. Several conflicting studies have tried to model afterpulsing behavior and link it to fundamental semiconductor physics. Here we describe experiments we performed on at least 2 different detectors from 3 manufacturers, all commonly used in quantum op…
The density matrix equations of motion in near-degenerate three-level V-type closed-loop atomic system are calculated numerically in Floquet frame. The dynamical behavior of atom- photon entanglement between the dressed atom and its spontaneous emission is studied in semi classical approach beyond the two-photon resonance condition in such a system. The quantum entropy of these two subsystems is investigated by using the von Neumann entropy. It is shown that, the degree of entanglement measure (DEM) can be controlled via the intensity and the detuning of coupling optical field and quantum inte…
We demonstrated the existence of single photon by counting correlation of laser output of a birefringent $β$-Barium Borate (BBO) crystal. The best result of anti-correlation parameter violates the classical prediction for wavelike behavior of light by 80 standard deviations.
Understanding the behavior of light in non-equilibrium scenarios underpins much of quantum optics and optical physics. While lasers provide a severe example of a non-equilibrium problem, recent interests in the near-equilibrium physics of so-called photon `gases', such as in Bose condensation of light or in attempts to make photonic quantum simulators, suggest one re-examine some near-equilibrium cases. Here we consider how a sinusoidal parametric coupling between two semi-infinite photonic transmission lines leads to the creation and flow of photons between the two lines. Our approach provide…
We investigate the distribution of the number of photons emitted by a single molecule undergoing a spectral diffusion process and interacting with a continuous wave laser field. The spectral diffusion is modeled based on a stochastic approach, in the spirit of the Anderson-Kubo line shape theory. Using a generating function formalism we solve the generalized optical Bloch equations, and obtain an exact analytical formula for the line shape and Mandel's Q parameter. The line shape exhibits well known behaviors, including motional narrowing when the stochastic modulation is fast, and power broad…
