Agne Sascha, Jin Jeongwan, Kuntz Katanya B, Miatto Filippo M, Bourgoin Jean-Philippe, Jennewein Thomas
Opt Express. 2020 Jul 6;28(14):20943-20953. doi: 10.1364/OE.396183.
The Hong-Ou-Mandel (HOM) effect ranks among the most notable quantum interference phenomena, and is central to many applications in quantum technologies. The fundamental effect appears when two independent and indistinguishable photons are superimposed on a beam splitter, which achieves a complete suppression of coincidences between the two output ports. Much less studied, however, is when the fields share coherence (continuous-wave lasers) or mode envelope properties (pulsed lasers). In this case, we expect the existence of two distinct and concurrent HOM interference regimes: the traditional HOM dip on the coherence length time scale, and a structured HOM interference pattern on the pulse length scale. We develop a theoretical framework that describes HOM interference for laser fields having arbitrary temporal waveforms and only partial overlap in time. We observe structured HOM interference from a continuous-wave laser via fast polarization modulation and time-resolved single photon detection fast enough to resolve these structured HOM dips.
洪-欧-曼德尔（HOM）效应是最显著的量子干涉现象之一，也是量子技术中许多应用的核心。当两个独立且不可区分的光子叠加在一个分束器上时，就会出现这种基本效应，它能完全抑制两个输出端口之间的符合计数。然而，对于场共享相干性（连续波激光器）或模式包络特性（脉冲激光器）的情况，研究则少得多。在这种情况下，我们预计存在两种不同且同时发生的HOM干涉机制：在相干长度时间尺度上的传统HOM凹陷，以及在脉冲长度尺度上的结构化HOM干涉图样。我们建立了一个理论框架，用于描述具有任意时间波形且仅在时间上部分重叠的激光场的HOM干涉。我们通过快速偏振调制和时间分辨单光子探测，从连续波激光器中观察到了结构化HOM干涉，其速度足够快，能够分辨这些结构化HOM凹陷。
