No Arabic abstract
Optical lossless beam splitters are frequently encountered in fundamental physics experiments regarding the nature of light, including which-way determination of light particles, N. Bohrs complementarity principle, or the EPR paradox and all their measurement apparatus. Although they look as common optical components at first glance, their behaviour remains somewhat mysterious since they apparently exhibit stand-alone particle-like features, and then wave-like characteristics when inserted into a Mach-Zehnder interferometer. In this communication are examined and discussed some basic properties of these beamssplitters, both from a classical optics and quantum physics point of view. Herein some convergences and contradictions are highlighted, and the results of a few emblematic experiments demonstrating photon existence are discussed. An alternative empirical model in wave optics is also proposed in order to shed light on some remaining questions
The Braess paradox encountered in classical networks is a counterintuitive phenomenon when the flow in a road network can be impeded by adding a new road or, more generally, the overall net performance can degrade after addition of an extra available choice. In this work, we discuss the possibility of a similar effect in a phase-coherent quantum transport and demonstrate it by example of a simple Y-shaped metallic fork. To reveal the Braess-like partial suppression of the charge flow in such device, it is proposed to transfer two outgoing arms into a superconducting state. We show that the differential conductance-vs-voltage spectrum of the hybrid fork structure varies considerably when the extra link between the two superconducting leads is added and it can serve as an indicator of quantum correlations which manifest themselves in the quantum Braess paradox.
We prove that a beam splitter, one of the most common optical components, fulfills several classes of majorization relations, which govern the amount of quantum entanglement that it can generate. First, we show that the state resulting from k photons impinging on a beam splitter majorizes the corresponding state with any larger photon number k>k, implying that the entanglement monotonically grows with k. Then, we examine parametric infinitesimal majorization relations as a function of the beam-splitter transmittance, and find that there exists a parameter region where majorization is again fulfilled, implying a monotonic increase of entanglement by moving towards a balanced beam splitter. We also identify regions with a majorization default, where the output states become incomparable. In this latter situation, we find examples where catalysis may nevertheless be used in order to recover majorization. The catalyst states can be as simple as a path-entangled single-photon state or a two-mode vacuum squeezed state.
We propose an entanglement beam splitter (EBS) using a quantum-dot spin in a double-sided optical microcavity. In contrast to the conventional optical beam splitter, the EBS can directly split a photon-spin product state into two constituent entangled states via transmission and reflection with high fidelity and high efficiency (up to 100 percent). This device is based on giant optical circular birefringence induced by a single spin as a result of cavity quantum electrodynamics and the spin selection rule of trion transition (Pauli blocking). The EBS is robust and it is immune to the fine structure splitting in a realistic quantum dot. This quantum device can be used for deterministically creating photon-spin, photon-photon and spin-spin entanglement as well as a single-shot quantum non-demolition measurement of a single spin. Therefore, the EBS can find wide applications in quantum information science and technology.
We realize quantum gates for path qubits with a high-speed, polarization-independent and tunable beam splitter. Two electro-optical modulators act in a Mach-Zehnder interferometer as high-speed phase shifters and rapidly tune its splitting ratio. We test its performance with heralded single photons, observing a polarization-independent interference contrast above 95%. The switching time is about 5.6 ns, and a maximal repetition rate is 2.5 MHz. We demonstrate tunable feed-forward operations of a single-qubit gate of path-encoded qubits and a two-qubit gate via measurement-induced interaction between two photons.
Light routing and manipulation are important aspects of integrated optics. They essentially rely on beam splitters which are at the heart of interferometric setups and active routing. The most common implementations of beam splitters suffer either from strong dispersive response (directional couplers) or tight fabrication tolerances (multimode interference couplers). In this paper we fabricate a robust and simple broadband integrated beam splitter based on lithium niobate with a splitting ratio achromatic over more than 130 nm. Our architecture is based on spatial adiabatic passage, a technique originally used to transfer entirely an optical beam from a waveguide to another one that has been shown to be remarkably robust against fabrication imperfections and wavelength dispersion. Our device shows a splitting ratio of 0.52$pm $0.03 and 0.48$pm $0.03 from 1500,nm up to 1630,nm. Furthermore, we show that suitable design enables the splitting in output beams with relative phase 0 or $pi$. Thanks to their independence to material dispersion, these devices represent simple, elementary components to create achromatic and versatile photonic circuits.