No Arabic abstract
Single photon detectors are important for a wide range of applications each with their own specific requirements, which makes necessary the precise characterization of detectors. Here, we present a simple and accurate methodology of characterizing dark count rate, detection efficiency, and after-pulsing in single photon detectors purely based on their counting statistics. We demonstrate our new method on a custom-made, free-running single photon detector based on an InGaAs based avalanche photo diode (APD), though the methodology presented here is applicable for any type of single photon detector.
This papers purpose is to review the results recently obtained in the Quantum Optics labs of the National Institute of Metrological Research (INRIM) in the field of single- and few-photon detectors calibration, from both the classical and quantum viewpoint. In the first part of the paper is presented the calibration of a single-photon detector with absolute methods, while in the second part we focus on photon-number-resolving detectors, discussing both the classical and quantum characterization of such devices.
Precise information about the temporal mode of optical states is crucial for optimizing their interaction efficiency between themselves and/or with matter in various quantum communication devices. Here we propose and experimentally demonstrate a method of determining both the real and imaginary components of a single photons temporal density matrix by measuring the autocorrelation function of the photocurrent from a balanced homodyne detector at multiple local oscillator frequencies. We test our method on single photons heralded from biphotons generated via four-wave mixing in an atomic vapor and obtain excellent agreement with theoretical predictions for several settings.
We show several techniques for using integrated-photonic waveguide structures to simultaneously characterize multiple waveguide-integrated superconducting-nanowire detectors with a single fiber input. The first set of structures allows direct comparison of detector performance of waveguide-integrated detectors with various widths and lengths. The second type of demonstrated integrated-photonic structure allows us to achieve detection with a high dynamic range. This device allows a small number of detectors to count photons across many orders of magnitude in count rate. However, we find a stray light floor of -30 dB limits the dynamic range to three orders of magnitude. To assess the utility of the detectors for use in synapses in spiking neural systems, we measured the response with average incident photon numbers ranging from less than $10^{-3}$ to greater than $10$. The detector response is identical across this entire range, indicating that synaptic responses based on these detectors will be independent of the number of incident photons in a communication pulse. Such a binary response is ideal for communication in neural systems. We further demonstrate that the response has a linear dependence of output current pulse height on bias current with up to a factor of 1.7 tunability in pulse height. Throughout the work, we compare room-temperature measurements to cryogenic measurements. The agreement indicates room-temperature measurements can be used to determine important properties of the detectors.
Single-photon detectors are widely used in modern quantum optics experiments and applications. Like all detectors, it is important for these devices to be accurately calibrated. A single-photon detector is calibrated by determining its detection efficiency; the standard method to measure this quantity requires comparison to another detector. Here, we suggest a method to measure the detection efficiency of a single photon detector without requiring an external reference detector. Our method is valid for individual single-photon detectors as well as multiplexed detectors, which are known to be photon number resolving. The method exploits the photon-number correlations of a nonlinear source, as well as the nonlinear loss of a single photon detector that occurs when multiple photons are detected simultaneously. We have analytically modeled multiplexed detectors and used the results to experimentally demonstrate calibration of a single photon detector without the need for an external reference detector.
In this paper, we describe a robust quantum cryptography scheme with a heralded single photon source based on the decoy-state method, which has been shown by numerical simulations to be advantageous compared with many other practical schemes not only with respect to the secure key generation rate but also to secure transmission distance. We have experimentally tested this scheme, and the results support the conclusions from numerical simulations well. Although there still exist many deficiencies in our present systems, its still sufficient to demonstrate the advantages of the scheme. Besides, even when cost and technological feasibility are taken into account, our scheme is still quite promising in the implementation of tomorrows quantum cryptography.