Dynamical modeling of pulsed two-photon interference

Fischer, Kevin A and Müller, Kai and Lagoudakis, Konstantinos G and Vučković, Jelena (2016) Dynamical modeling of pulsed two-photon interference. New Journal of Physics, 18 (11). p. 113053. ISSN 1367-2630 (https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/18/11/113053)

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Abstract

Single-photon sources are at the heart of quantum-optical networks, with their uniquely quantum emission and phenomenon of two-photon interference allowing for the generation and transfer of nonclassical states. Although a few analytical methods have been briefly investigated for describing pulsed single-photon sources, these methods apply only to either perfectly ideal or at least extremely idealized sources. Here, we present the first complete picture of pulsed single-photon sources by elaborating how to numerically and fully characterize non-ideal single-photon sources operating in a pulsed regime. In order to achieve this result, we make the connection between quantum Monte-Carlo simulations, experimental characterizations, and an extended form of the quantum regression theorem. We elaborate on how an ideal pulsed single-photon source is connected to its photocount distribution and its measured degree of second- and first-order optical coherence. By doing so, we provide a description of the relationship between instantaneous source correlations and the typical experimental interferometers (Hanbury-Brown and Twiss, Hong–Ou–Mandel, and Mach–Zehnder) used to characterize such sources. Then, we use these techniques to explore several prototypical quantum systems and their non-ideal behaviors. As an example numerical result, we show that for the most popular single-photon source—a resonantly excited two-level system—its error probability is directly related to its excitation pulse length. We believe that the intuition gained from these representative systems and characters can be used to interpret future results with more complicated source Hamiltonians and behaviors. Finally, we have thoroughly documented our simulation methods with contributions to the Quantum Optics Toolbox in Python in order to make our work easily accessible to other scientists and engineers.

ORCID iDs

Fischer, Kevin A, Müller, Kai, Lagoudakis, Konstantinos G ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4410-4755 and Vučković, Jelena;
  • Item type:Article
    ID code:64408
    Dates:
    Date
    Event
    29 November 2016
    Published
    3 November 2016
    Accepted
    Subjects:Science > Physics
    Department:Faculty of Science > Physics
    Depositing user: Pure Administrator
    Date deposited:11 Jun 2018 14:32
    Last modified:11 Nov 2024 12:00
    Related URLs:
    URI:https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/id/eprint/64408
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