Inspecting the use of SLMs for the control of photonic quantum states

Abstract

Spatial light modulators (SLMs) are widely used to coherently control quantum states of light. When carrying out these experiments, some assumptions are made. For instance, it is supposed that the position-momentum correlations between twin photon pairs are not affected by the use of a liquid crystal display (LCD) as a SLM. Furthermore, it is assumed that the characterization of such devices performed with an intense laser source, is still valid in the single photon regime. In this work, we show that such assumptions are acceptable, within the experimental uncertainties, for a liquid crystal on silicon (LCoS) display. This is especially important when considering the use of this kind of displays for the coherent control of quantum states based on twin photon sources.