Photon statistics without coincidence counting using an unbalanced beam-splitter
Hamed Pourbeyram, Cody Bassett, Arash Mafi · OSA Continuum · 2019
We have developed a new method to determine the photon statistics of a light source without the need for coincidence counting. Our method relies on using an asymmetric beam-splitter with intentional asymmetrical losses in a non-photon-number resolving detection system. We observe that the counts from one arm of the beam-splitter, when plotted as a function of the counts from the other arm, follow universal single-parameter curves that hint to the statistics of the photon source. We make a series of measurements on single photons detected from an attenuated laser source and show that the data clearly conforms to the universal curve established exclusively for coherent sources. We also show that the data cannot be fitted to the universal curve for thermal and photon-number sources.