Spectral single photons characterization using generalized Hong, Ou and Mandel interferometry

TL;DR

This paper introduces novel methods for characterizing the spectral-temporal properties of single photons using generalized Hong, Ou and Mandel interferometry combined with spectral filtering and entanglement, enabling detailed phase-space measurements.

Contribution

It presents new protocols that utilize spectral filtering and frequency entanglement with a generalized interferometer to measure single-photon spectral and temporal distributions.

Findings

Able to measure the chronocyclic Wigner distribution at the single-photon level

Can reconstruct the pseudo-Wigner distribution and spectrogram of single photons

Provides a new approach for detailed spectral-temporal characterization of single photons

Abstract

New methods are proposed to characterize the spectral-temporal distribution of single photons. The presented protocols take advantage of spectral filtering, frequency entanglement between two single photons the one of interest and a reference, followed by the generalized Hong, Ou and Mandel interferometer. The measurement of the coincidence probability in these different schemes reveals the chronocyclic Wigner, the pseudo-Wigner distribution and the spectrogram at the single-photon level.