Single-photon hologram of a zero-area pulse

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the spectral resolution of the Hong-Ou-Mandel effect to characterize a complex zero-area single-photon pulse generated through resonant light-atom interaction, advancing understanding of quantum properties and applications.

Contribution

It introduces a method to spectrally resolve the Hong-Ou-Mandel effect for characterizing complex temporal single-photon modes, specifically zero-area pulses, via light-atom interactions.

Findings

Successful spectral resolution of the Hong-Ou-Mandel effect

Characterization of a zero-area single-photon pulse

Insights into bandwidth-mismatched light-atom interactions

Abstract

Single photons exhibit inherently quantum and unintuitive properties such as the Hong-ou-Mandel effect, demonstrating their bosonic and quantized nature, yet at the same time may correspond to single excitations of spatial or temporal modes with a very complex structure. Those two features are rarely seen together. Here we experimentally demonstrate how the Hong-Ou-Mandel effect can be spectrally-resolved and harnessed to characterize a complex temporal mode of a single-photon \textendash{} a zero-area pulse \textendash{} obtained via a resonant interaction of a terahertz-bandwidth photon with a narrow gigahertz-wide atomic transition of atomic vapor. The combination of bosonic quantum behavior with bandwidth-mismatched light-atom interaction is of fundamental importance for a deeper understanding of both phenomena, as well as their engineering offering applications in the characterization of ultra-fast transient processes.