Beyond conventional photon-number detection with click detectors
Abstract
Photon-number measurements are a fundamental technique for the discrimination and characterization of quantum states of light. Beyond the abilities of state-of-the-art devices, we present measurements with an array of 100 avalanche photodiodes exposed to photon-numbers ranging from well below to significantly above one photon per diode. Despite each single diode only discriminating between zero and non-zero photon-numbers we are able to extract characteristic information about the quantum state. We demonstrate a vast enhancement of the applicable intensity range by two orders of magnitude relative to the standard application of such devices. It turns out that the probabilistic mapping of arbitrary photon-numbers on a finite number of registered clicks is not per se a disadvantage compared with true photon counters. Such detector arrays can bridge the gap between single-photon and linear detection, by directly using the recorded data, without the need of elaborate data reconstruction methods.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1706.00949,
title = {Beyond conventional photon-number detection with click detectors},
author = {Johannes Kröger and Thomas Ahrens and Jan Sperling and Werner Vogel and Heinrich Stolz and Boris Hage},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1706.00949},
year = {2017}
}
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4 figures