No Arabic abstract
Spatial modes of light constitute valuable resources for a variety of quantum technologies ranging from quantum communication and quantum imaging to remote sensing. Nevertheless, their vulnerabilities to phase distortions, induced by random media, impose significant limitations on the realistic implementation of numerous quantum-photonic technologies. Unfortunately, this problem is exacerbated at the single-photon level. Over the last two decades, this challenging problem has been tackled through conventional schemes that utilize optical nonlinearities, quantum correlations, and adaptive optics. In this article, we exploit the self-learning and self-evolving features of artificial neural networks to correct the complex spatial profile of distorted Laguerre-Gaussian modes at the single-photon level. Furthermore, we demonstrate the possibility of boosting the performance of an optical communication protocol through the spatial mode correction of single photons using machine learning. Our results have important implications for real-time turbulence correction of structured photons and single-photon images.
We demonastrate experimental technique for generating spatially single-mode broadband biphoton field. The method is based on dispersive optical element which precisely tailors the structure of type-I SPDC frequency angular spectrum in order to shift different spectral components to a single angular mode. Spatial mode filtering is realized by coupling biphotons into a single-mode optical fiber.
As the generation of squeezed states of light has become a standard technique in laboratories, attention is increasingly directed towards adapting the optical parameters of squeezed beams to the specific requirements of individual applications. It is known that imaging, metrology, and quantum information may benefit from using squeezed light with a tailored transverse spatial mode. However, experiments have so far been limited to generating only a few squeezed spatial modes within a given setup. Here, we present the generation of single-mode squeezing in Laguerre-Gauss and Bessel-Gauss modes, as well as an arbitrary intensity pattern, all from a single setup using a spatial light modulator (SLM). The degree of squeezing obtained is limited mainly by the initial squeezing and diffractive losses introduced by the SLM, while no excess noise from the SLM is detectable at the measured sideband. The experiment illustrates the single-mode concept in quantum optics and demonstrates the viability of current SLMs as flexible tools for the spatial reshaping of squeezed light.
Unitary transformations are the fundamental building blocks of gates and operations in quantum information processing allowing the complete manipulation of quantum systems in a coherent manner. In the case of photons, optical elements that can perform unitary transformations are readily available only for some degrees of freedom, e.g. wave plates for polarisation. However for high-dimensional states encoded in the transverse spatial modes of light, performing arbitrary unitary transformations remains a challenging task for both theoretical proposals and actual implementations. Following the idea of multi-plane light conversion, we show that it is possible to perform a broad variety of unitary operations when the number of phase modulation planes is comparable to the number of modes. More importantly, we experimentally implement several high-dimensional quantum gates for up to 5-dimensional states encoded in the full-field mode structure of photons. In particular, we realise cyclic and quantum Fourier transformations, known as Pauli $hat{X}$-gates and Hadamard $hat{H}$-gates, respectively, with an average visibility of more than 90%. In addition, we demonstrate near-perfect unitarity by means of quantum process tomography unveiling a process purity of 99%. Lastly, we demonstrate the benefit of the two independent spatial degrees of freedom, i.e. azimuthal and radial, and implement a two-qubit controlled-NOT quantum operation on a single photon. Thus, our demonstrations open up new paths to implement high-dimensional quantum operations, which can be applied to various tasks in quantum communication, computation and sensing schemes.
The identification of light sources represents a task of utmost importance for the development of multiple photonic technologies. Over the last decades, the identification of light sources as diverse as sunlight, laser radiation and molecule fluorescence has relied on the collection of photon statistics or the implementation of quantum state tomography. In general, this task requires an extensive number of measurements to unveil the characteristic statistical fluctuations and correlation properties of light, particularly in the low-photon flux regime. In this article, we exploit the self-learning features of artificial neural networks and naive Bayes classifier to dramatically reduce the number of measurements required to discriminate thermal light from coherent light at the single-photon level. We demonstrate robust light identification with tens of measurements at mean photon numbers below one. Our work demonstrates an improvement in terms of the number of measurements of several orders of magnitude with respect to conventional schemes for characterization of light sources. Our work has important implications for multiple photonic technologies such as LIDAR and microscopy.
Photons are critical to quantum technologies since they can be used for virtually all quantum information tasks: in quantum metrology, as the information carrier in photonic quantum computation, as a mediator in hybrid systems, and to establish long distance networks. The physical characteristics of photons in these applications differ drastically; spectral bandwidths span 12 orders of magnitude from 50 THz for quantum-optical coherence tomography to 50 Hz for certain quantum memories. Combining these technologies requires coherent interfaces that reversibly map centre frequencies and bandwidths of photons to avoid excessive loss. Here we demonstrate bandwidth compression of single photons by a factor 40 and tunability over a range 70 times that bandwidth via sum-frequency generation with chirped laser pulses. This constitutes a time-to-frequency interface for light capable of converting time-bin to colour entanglement and enables ultrafast timing measurements. It is a step toward arbitrary waveform generation for single and entangled photons.