Experimental Quantum Optics with Photons
Ling-An Wu · AIP conference proceedings · 2005
Our group is engaged primarily in experimental quantum optics and related research involving single photon detection that may have future applications. There are six graduate students involved, of whom three are women. We have recently completed the first successful demonstration of correlated two‐photon imaging and sub‐wavelength interference with true thermal light from a hollow cathode lamp. The object was a pair of pinholes, and the corresponding thin lens equation was well satisfied. Although the visibility is substantially lower than in the case of entangled photons, it is conceivable that if the background could be removed by some means (e.g., digitally), there could be many applications for correlated imaging with thermal light. We have also built a quantum key distribution system based on two polarization beam splitters that cancel out the phase modulator’s polarization dependence. A high key generation rate has been obtained for the first time at 1310 nm transmitted over a 25‐km‐long fiber, with a fringe visibility of 99.4%. A sifted key rate of about 0.6 kbits/s and quantum bit error rate of about 0.5% have been obtained.