Conventional optical synthesis, the manipulation of the phase and amplitude of spectral components to produce an optical pulse in different temporal modes, is revolutionizing ultrafast optical science and metrology. These technologies rely on the Fourier transform of light fields between time and frequency domains in one-dimensional space. However, within this treatment it is impossible to incorporate the quantum correlation among photons. Here we expand the Fourier synthesis into high dimensional space to deal with the quantum correlation, and carry out an experimental demonstration by manipulating the two-photon probability distribution of a biphoton in two-dimensional time and frequency space. As a potential application, we show manipulation of a heralded single-photon wave packet, which is never explained by the conventional one-dimensional Fourier optics. Our approach opens up a new pathway to tailor the temporal characteristics of a biphoton wave packet with high dimensional quantum-mechanical treatment. We anticipate such high dimensional treatment of light in time and frequency domains could bridge the research fields between quantum optics and ultrafast optical measurements.
Selective truncation of Fock-state expansion of an optical field can be achieved using projection synthesis. The process removes predetermined Fock states from the input field by conditional measurement and teleportation. We present a scheme based on multiport interferometry to perform projection synthesis. This scheme can be used both as a generalized quantum scissors device, which filters out Fock states with photon numbers higher than a predetermined value, and also as a quantum punching device, which selectively removes specific Fock states making holes in the Fock-state expansion of the i…
Quantum projection synthesis can be used for phase-probability-distribution measurement, optical-state truncation and preparation. The method relies on interfering optical lights, which is a major challenge in experiments performed by pulsed light sources. In the pulsed regime, the time frequency overlap of the interfering lights plays a crucial role on the efficiency of the method when they have different mode structures. In this paper, the pulsed mode projection synthesis is developed, the mode structure of interfering lights are characterized and the effect of this overlap (or mode match) o…
We propose and experimentally realize a novel versatile protocol that allows the quantum state engineering of heralded optical coherent-state superpositions. This scheme relies on a two-mode squeezed state, linear mixing and a $n$-photon detection. It is optimally using expensive non-Gaussian resources to build up only the key non-Gaussian part of the targeted state. In the experimental case of a two-photon detection based on high-efficiency superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors, the freely propagating state exhibits a 67% fidelity with a squeezed even coherent-state superposition w…
We investigate the coherent manipulation of interacting Rydberg atoms placed inside a high-finesse optical cavity for the deterministic preparation of strongly coupled light-matter systems. We consider a four-level diamond scheme with one common Rydberg level for N interacting atoms. One side of the diamond is used to excite the atoms into a collective `superatom' Rydberg state using either π-pulses or stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP) pulses. The upper transition on the other side of the diamond is used to transfer the collective state to one that is coupled to a field mode of an op…
Non-Gaussian states are essential for many optical quantum technologies. The so-called optical quantum state synthesizer (OQSS), consisting of Gaussian input states, linear optics, and photon-number resolving detectors, is a promising method for non-Gaussian state preparation. However, an inevitable and crucial problem is the complexity of the numerical simulation of the state preparation on a classical computer. This problem makes it very challenging to generate important non-Gaussian states required for advanced quantum information processing. Thus, an efficient method to design OQSS circuit…
Displaced Fock states of the electromagnetic field have been synthesized by overlapping the pulsed optical single-photon Fock state |1> with coherent states on a high-reflection beamsplitter and completely characterized by means of quantum homodyne tomography. The reconstruction reveals highly non-classical properties of displaced Fock states, such as negativity of the Wigner function and photon number oscillations. This is the first time complete tomographic reconstruction has been performed on a highly non-classical optical state.
Synthesis of the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen entangled state --- the primary entangled resource in continuous-variable quantum-optical information processing --- is a technological challenge of great importance. Here we propose and implement a new scheme of generating this state. Two nonlinear optical crystals, positioned back-to-back in the waist of a pump beam, function as single-pass degenerate optical parametric amplifiers and produce single-mode squeezed vacuum states in orthogonal polarization modes, but in the same spatiotemporal mode. A subsequent pair of waveplates acts as a beam splitter…
The skyrmion, which is characterised by a topological integer, is a structure that is topologically stable against local disturbances. The huge potential of skyrmions for use in magnetic storage systems has drawn considerable research interest among physicists. Recently, the optical skyrmion was discovered and has some excellent properties. However, these optical skyrmions have been observed, for example, in surface plasmons that consist of evanescent waves. This type of optical skyrmion is difficult to manipulate and also difficult to apply in practice. In this work, we realise several skyrmi…
Quantum optical synthesis of high-dimensional ultrafast frequency-bin qudits
Graduate School of Informatics and Engineering, The University of Electro-Communications（电子通信大学信息工程研究生院）；Advanced ICT Research Institute, National Institute of Information and Communications Technology（国家信息通信技术研究所先进ICT研究所）；Institute for Advanced Science, The University of Electro-Communications（电子通信大学高等科学研究院）
Highest resolution imaging in astronomy is achieved by interferometry, connecting telescopes over increasingly longer distances, and at successively shorter wavelengths. Here, we present the first diffraction-limited images in visual light, produced by an array of independent optical telescopes, connected electronically only, with no optical links between them. With an array of small telescopes, second-order optical coherence of the sources is measured through intensity interferometry over 180 baselines between pairs of telescopes, and two-dimensional images reconstructed. The technique aims a…
We report on the systematic investigation of the optical properties of a selectively grown quantum dot gain material assisted by block-copolymer lithography for potential applications in active optical devices operating in the wavelength range around 1.55 um and above. We investigated a new type of diblock copolymer PS-b-PDMS (polystyrene-block-polydimethylsiloxane) for the fabrication of silicon oxycarbide hard mask for selective area epitaxy of InAs/InP quantum dots. An array of InAs/InP quantum dots was selectively grown via droplet epitaxy. Our detailed investigation of the quantum dot car…
Pulse-by-pulse programmable synthesis of ultrafast optical waveforms
East China Normal University（华东师范大学）；Chongqing Institute of East China Normal University（华东师范大学重庆研究院）；Polytechnique Montréal（蒙特利尔高等理工学院）；University of New Mexico（新墨西哥大学）
This paper is concerned with a linear fractional representation approach to the synthesis of linear coherent quantum controllers for a given linear quantum plant. The plant and controller represent open quantum harmonic oscillators and are modelled by linear quantum stochastic differential equations. The feedback interconnections between the plant and the controller are assumed to be established through quantum bosonic fields. In this framework, conditions for the stabilization of a given linear quantum plant via linear coherent quantum feedback are addressed using a stable factorization appro…
We show a concept of optical frequency tweezers for tweezing light in the optical frequency domain with a high resolution, which is the frequency version of the optical tweezers for spatial manipulation of microscopic objects. We report the proof-of-principle experiment via frequency conversion inside a cavity only for the converted light. Thanks to the atypical configuration, the experimental result successfully achieves the tweezing operation in the frequency domain, which picks a light at a target frequency from the frequency-multiplexed input light and converts to a different frequency, wi…
