We present experimental results on a method to perform polarimetry on ensembles of single photons. Our setup is based on a measurement method known to be optimal for estimating the state of two level systems. The setup has no moving parts and is sensitive to weak sources (emitting single photons) of light as it relies on photon counting and has potential applications in both classical polarization measurements and quantum communication scenarios. In our implementation, we are able to reconstruct the Stokes parameters of pure polarization states with an average fidelity of 99.9%.
@article{arxiv.quant-ph/0511053,
title = {An Optimal Photon Counting Polarimeter},
author = {Alexander Ling and Soh Kee Pang and Antia Lamas-Linares and Christian Kurtsiefer},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:quant-ph/0511053},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
Rev 1, added references and revised title. Accepted by the Journal of Modern Optics