Advanced quantum technologies, as well as fundamental tests of quantum physics, crucially require the interference of multiple single photons in linear-optics circuits. This interference can result in the bunching of photons into higher Fock states, leading to a complex bosonic behaviour. These challenging tasks timely require to develop collective criteria to benchmark many independent initial resources. Here we determine whether n independent imperfect single photons can ultimately bunch into the Fock state ∣n⟩. We thereby introduce an experimental Fock-state bunching capability for single-photon sources, which uses phase-space interference for extreme bunching events as a quantifier. In contrast to autocorrelation functions, this operational approach takes into account not only residual multi-photon components but also vacuum admixture and the dispersion of the individual photon statistics. We apply this approach to high-purity single photons generated from an optical parametric oscillator and show that they can lead to a Fock-state capability of at least 14. Our work demonstrates a novel collective benchmark for single-photon sources and their use in subsequent stringent applications.
@article{arxiv.2012.08544,
title = {Experimental Fock-State Bunching Capability of Non-Ideal Single-Photon States},
author = {P. Zapletal and T. Darras and H. Le Jeannic and A. Cavaillès and G. Guccione and J. Laurat and R. Filip},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2012.08544},
year = {2021}
}