Double-heralded generation of two-photon-states by spontaneous four-wave-mixing in the presence of noise

作者：Smith Roger A; Reddy Dileep V; Vitullo Dashiell L P; Raymer M G

来源：Optics Express, 2016, 24(6): 5809-5821.

DOI：10.1364/OE.24.005809

We present an experimental method for creating and verifying photon-number states created by non-degenerate, third-order nonlinear-optical photon-pair sources. By using spatially multiplexed, thresholding single-photon detectors and inverting a conditional probability matrix, we determine the photon-number probabilities created through heralded spontaneous four-wave-mixing. The deleterious effects of noise photons on reliable heralding are investigated and shown to degrade the conditional preparation of two-photon number states more than they degrade conditional single-photon states. We derive the equivalence between the presence of unwanted noise in the herald channel and loss in the signal channel of heralded experiments. A procedure for characterizing the noise-photon contributions, and a means of estimating the herald noise-free photon-number distribution is demonstrated.

• 出版日期2016-3-21