Quantum coincidence holography

By itself, a source of quantum light issued from spontaneous down conversion (SPDC) appears as incoherent, preventing the formation of an image in the Fourier plane. However, coincidence imaging of pairs of twin photons allows... [ view full abstract ]

By itself, a source of quantum light issued from spontaneous down conversion (SPDC) appears as incoherent, preventing the formation of an image in the Fourier plane. However, coincidence imaging of pairs of twin photons allows the spatial spectrum to be retrieved [1, 2]. In this paper, we report coincidence imaging of bidimensional phase holograms using two EMCCD cameras. The cross correlation of the images allows a coherent image to be retrieved in the far field.

Photon pairs are generated via type-II SPDC [4]. The crystal (i.e. near field of twin photons) is imaged on a binary phase hologram. The cross-polarized signal and idler beams are then naturally separated thanks to walk-off. Lastly, photons of pairs are detected and resolved spatially in the far-field on two EMCCD cameras used in photon counting mode [3]. The pattern encoded in the hologram appears at 1 diffraction orders on the cross-corrrelation in momentum (Fig. 1d), calculated over 80000 twin images.

We have shown that two-photon imaging potentially allows coherent manipulation of light in complex situations like holography. Unlike previous experiments [1, 2], all the light is used, allowing full bi-dimensional manipulation of high dimensionality biphoton states, with potential applications in present hot topics, like boson sampling.

Fig. 1. (a) Experimental setup. (b) Pattern of the binary phase hologram. Insert: the pattern encoded in the hologram. (c) Average photon number (d) Cross-corrrelation in momentum, given in dB, calculated over 80000 twin images..

References

1. W. A. T. Nogueira, S. P. Walborn, S. P´adua, and C. H. Monken, PRL 86, 4009–4012, 2001

2. W. H. Peeters, J. J. D. Moerman, and M. P. van Exter, PRL. 104, 173601, 2010

3. P.-A. Moreau, F. Devaux, and E. Lantz, PRL113, 160401, 2014.

4. F. Devaux, A. Mosset, F. Bassignot, and E. Lantz, arXiv:1804.11077 [quant-ph], 2018.