High-order dispersion effects in two-photon interference

TL;DR

This paper investigates how high-order dispersion impacts two-photon interference and the Hong-Ou-Mandel effect, combining theoretical analysis and experiments to understand their influence on measurement resolution and visibility.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive study of high-order dispersion effects on two-photon interference, including experimental manipulation using a spatial light modulator.

Findings

High-order dispersion affects the width and visibility of the HOM dip.

Manipulating the pump and photon spectra influences interference outcomes.

Experimental results confirm theoretical predictions about dispersion effects.

Abstract

Two-photon interference and Hong-Ou-Mandel (HOM) effect are relevant tools for quantum metrology and quantum information processing. In optical coherence tomography, HOM effect is exploited to achieve high-resolution measurements with the width of the HOM dip being the main parameter. On the other hand, applications like dense coding require high-visibility performances. Here we address high-order dispersion effects in two-photon interference and study, theoretically and experimentally, the dependence of the visibility and the width of the HOM dip on both the pump spectrum and the downconverted photon spectrum. In particular, a spatial light modulator is exploited to experimentally introduce and manipulate a custom phase function to simulate the high-order dispersion effects.