82 research outputs found
Photon bunching in parametric down-conversion with continuous wave excitation
The first direct measurement of photon bunching (g2 correlation function) in
one output arm of a spontaneous-parametric-down-conversion source operated with
a continuous pump laser in the single-photon regime is demonstrated. The result
is in agreement with the statistics of a thermal field of the same coherence
length, and shows the feasibility of investigating photon statistics with
compact cw-pumped sources. Implications for entanglement-based quantum
cryptography are discussed.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, expanded introduction and experimental details
added. Accepted for publication in Phys.Rev.
High coherence photon pair source for quantum communication
This paper reports a novel single mode source of narrow-band entangled photon
pairs at telecom wavelengths under continuous wave excitation, based on
parametric down conversion. For only 7 mW of pump power it has a created
spectral radiance of 0.08 pairs per coherence length and a bandwidth of 10 pm
(1.2 GHz). The effectively emitted spectral brightness reaches 3.9*10^5 pairs
/(s pm). Furthermore, when combined with low jitter single photon detectors,
such sources allow for the implementation of quantum communication protocols
without any active synchronization or path length stabilization. A HOM-Dip with
photons from two autonomous CW sources has been realized demonstrating the
setup's stability and performance.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figure
Pulsed energy-time entangled twin-photon source for quantum communication
A pulsed source of energy-time entangled photon pairs pumped by a standard
laser diode is proposed and demonstrated. The basic states can be distinguished
by their time of arrival. This greatly simplifies the realization of 2-photon
quantum cryptography, Bell state analyzers, quantum teleportation, dense
coding, entanglement swapping, GHZ-states sources, etc. Moreover the
entanglement is well protected during photon propagation in telecom optical
fibers, opening the door to few-photon applications of quantum communication
over long distances.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure
Conditional probabilities for a single photon at a beam splitter
Published versio
Quantum Langevin equations for semiconductor light-emitting devices and the photon statistics at a low-injection level
From the microscopic quantum Langevin equations (QLEs) we derive the
effective semiconductor QLEs and the associated noise correlations which are
valid at a low-injection level and in real devices. Applying the semiconductor
QLEs to semiconductor light-emitting devices (LEDs), we obtain a new formula
for the Fano factor of photons which gives the photon-number statistics as a
function of the pump statistics and several parameters of LEDs. Key ingredients
are non-radiative processes, carrier-number dependence of the radiative and
non-radiative lifetimes, and multimodeness of LEDs. The formula is applicable
to the actual cases where the quantum efficiency differs from the
differential quantum efficiency , whereas previous theories
implicitly assumed . It is also applicable to the cases when
photons in each mode of the cavity are emitted and/or detected inhomogeneously.
When at a running point, in particular, our formula predicts
that even a Poissonian pump can produce sub-Poissonian light. This mechanism
for generation of sub-Poissonian light is completely different from those of
previous theories, which assumed sub-Poissonian statistics for the current
injected into the active layers of LEDs. Our results agree with recent
experiments. We also discuss frequency dependence of the photon statistics.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figure
Entangled state quantum cryptography: Eavesdropping on the Ekert protocol
Using polarization-entangled photons from spontaneous parametric
downconversion, we have implemented Ekert's quantum cryptography protocol. The
near-perfect correlations of the photons allow the sharing of a secret key
between two parties. The presence of an eavesdropper is continually checked by
measuring Bell's inequalities. We investigated several possible eavesdropper
strategies, including pseudo-quantum non-demolition measurements. In all cases,
the eavesdropper's presence was readily apparent. We discuss a procedure to
increase her detectability.Comment: 4 pages, 2 encapsulated postscript files, PRL (tentatively) accepte
Quantum Cryptography using entangled photons in energy-time Bell states
We present a setup for quantum cryptography based on photon pairs in
energy-time Bell states and show its feasability in a laboratory experiment.
Our scheme combines the advantages of using photon pairs instead of faint laser
pulses and the possibility to preserve energy-time entanglement over long
distances. Moreover, using 4-dimensional energy-time states, no fast random
change of bases is required in our setup : Nature itself decides whether to
measure in the energy or in the time base.Comment: 4 pages including 2 figure
Violation of Bell inequalities by photons more than 10 km apart
A Franson-type test of Bell inequalities by photons 10.9 km apart is
presented. Energy-time entangled photon-pairs are measured using two-channel
analyzers, leading to a violation of the inequalities by 16 standard deviations
without subtracting accidental coincidences. Subtracting them, a 2-photon
interference visibility of 95.5% is observed, demonstrating that distances up
to 10 km have no significant effect on entanglement. This sets quantum
cryptography with photon pairs as a practical competitor to the schemes based
on weak pulses.Comment: 4 pages, REVTeX, 2 postscript figures include
Experimental demonstration of quantum correlations over more than 10 km
Energy and time entangled photons at a wavelength of 1310 nm are produced by
parametric downconversion in a KNbO3 crystal and are sent into all-fiber
interferometers using a telecom fiber network. The two interferometers of this
Franson-type test of the Bell-inequality are located 10.9 km apart from one
another. Two-photon fringe visibilities of up to 81.6 % are obtained. These
strong nonlocal correlations support the nonlocal predictions of quantum
mechanics and provide evidence that entanglement between photons can be
maintained over long distances.Comment: 5 pages, REVTeX, 3 postscript figures include
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