We present the characterization of a novel balanced homodyne detector operating in the mid-infrared. The challenging task of revealing non-classicality in mid-infrared light, e.~g. in quantum cascade lasers emission, requires a high-performance detection system. Through the intensity noise power spectral density analysis of the differential signal coming from the incident radiation, we show that our setup is shot-noise limited. We discuss the experimental results with a view to possible applications to quantum technologies, such as free-space quantum communication.
@article{arxiv.2103.08977,
title = {Mid-infrared homodyne balanced detector for quantum light characterization},
author = {Tecla Gabbrielli and Francesco Cappelli and Natalia Bruno and Nicola Corrias and Simone Borri and Paolo De Natale and Alessandro Zavatta},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2103.08977},
year = {2021}
}