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APS » Journals » Phys. Rev. Lett. » Volume 76 » Issue 14
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Phys. Rev. Lett. 76, 2464–2467 (1996)

Photon Chopping: New Way to Measure the Quantum State of Light

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H. Paul1, P. Törmä2, T. Kiss1,3, and I. Jex1,4,4b
1Arbeitsgruppe “Nichtklassische Strahlung” der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft an der Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Rudower Chaussee 5, 12484 Berlin, Germany
2Research Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Helsinki, P.O. Box 9, FIN-00014 Helsinki, Finland
3Research Laboratory for Crystal Physics, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, P.O. Box 132, H-1502 Budapest, Hungary
4Department of Physics, FNSPE, Czech Technical University, Břehova 7, 115 19 Praha, Czech Republic
4band Institute of Physics, SAS, Dúbravská cesta 9, 842 28 Bratislava, Slovakia

Received 29 August 1995; published in the issue dated 1 April 1996

We propose the use of a balanced 2N-port as a technique to measure the pure quantum state of a single-mode light field. In our scheme the coincidence signals of simple, realistic photodetectors are recorded at the output of the 2N-port. We show that applying different arrangements both the modulus and the phase of the coefficients in a finite superposition state can be measured. In particular, the photon statistics can be so measured with currently available devices.

© 1996 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.76.2464
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.76.2464
PACS:
42.50.Dv, 42.79.Ta
 
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