Two-photon experiments in the frequency domain
I. Mbodji, Laurent Olislager, Erik Woodhead, Batiste Galmès, Johann Cussey, Luca Furfaro, Philippe Emplit, Serge Massar, Kien Phan Huy, Jean-Marc Mérolla · Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 2012
We report on the study of two-photon interference in the frequency domain. Bell and Hong-Ou-Mandel experiments are investigated. These experiments involve the manipulation of photons in the frequency domain, using off-the-shelf telecommunication components such as electro-optic phase modulators and narrow-band frequency filters. In the first experiment, photon pairs entangled in frequency are created and separated. Each photon is then directed through an independent electro-optic phase modulator. Variation of the radio-frequency parameters of the modulation gives rise to a well-controlled Bessel-shape two-photon interference pattern in the frequency domain. This is efficiently measured with narrow-band frequency filters and superconducting single photon detectors. Experimental measurements exhibit high visibilities (over 99 percent both for net and raw visibilities) and allow the (theoretically proven) optimal violation of a Bell inequality for our setup (by more than 18 standard deviations). The second experiment is a Hong-Ou-Mandel experiment in the frequency domain. We show that a grating (spatial domain) or a phase modulator (temporal domain) can be seen as a frequency beam splitter. A broadband spectrum of photon pairs is divided into two interleaved frequency combs, each one used as an independent input to this acting beam splitter. A theoretical calculation shows clear photon anti-bunching behavior.