Observing the nonclassical nature of ultra-broadband bi-photons at ultrafast speed

Abstract

We observe at record-high speed the nonclassical nature of ultra-broadband bi-photons, reducing the measurement time by four orders of magnitude compared to standard techniques of Hong-Ou-Mandel interference or sum-frequency generation. We measure the quantum wave-function of the broadband bi-photons, amplitude and phase, with a pairwise 'Mach-Zehnder' quantum interferometer, where bi-photons that are generated in one nonlinear crystal are enhanced (constructive interference) or diminished (destructive interference) in another crystal, depending on the bi-photon phase. We verify the quantum nature of the interference by observing the dependence of the fringe visibility on internal loss. Since destructive interference is equivalent to an attempt to annihilate in the second crystal (by up-conversion) the bi-photons that were created in the first crystal (by down-conversion), the fringe visibility is a measure of the quantum bi-photon purity of the broadband light. The measurement speed-up is due to the large homodyne-like gain from the strong pump (∼107-9) in the up-conversion efficiency of single bi-photons, which enables the use of simple photo-detection of the full, ultra-high photon flux instead of single-photon/coincidence counting. © 2014 IOP Publishing Ltd and Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft.