High Speed Imaging of Spectral-Temporal Correlations in Hong-Ou-Mandel Interference

TL;DR

This paper presents a rapid, versatile spectral-temporal measurement method for Hong-Ou-Mandel interference using a photon-counting camera, enabling detailed analysis of entangled photon sources across a broad spectral range.

Contribution

Introduces a spectrometer-based setup for fast, high-resolution spectral-temporal correlation measurements of HOM interference without requiring pulsed lasers.

Findings

Achieves sub-nanometer spectral resolution and nanosecond timing resolution.

Allows spectral filtering and analysis over a wide wavelength range.

Operates efficiently without pulsed pump lasers.

Abstract

In this work we demonstrate spectral-temporal correlation measurements of the Hong-Ou-Mandel (HOM) interference effect with the use of a spectrometer based on a photon-counting camera. This setup allows us to take, within seconds, spectral temporal correlation measurements on entangled photon sources with sub-nanometer spectral resolution and nanosecond timing resolution. Through post processing, we can observe the HOM behaviour for any number of spectral filters of any shape and width at any wavelength over the observable spectral range. Our setup also offers great versatility in that it is capable of operating at a wide spectral range from the visible to the near infrared and does not require a pulsed pump laser for timing purposes. This work offers the ability to gain large amounts of spectral and temporal information from a HOM interferometer quickly and efficiently and will be a very useful tool for many quantum technology applications and fundamental quantum optics research.