Interferometric sorting of temporal Hermite-Gauss modes via temporal Gouy phase

TL;DR

This paper introduces a device using Mach-Zehnder interferometers and temporal Gouy phase shifts to efficiently sort temporal Hermite-Gauss modes of light, with potential applications in quantum photonics.

Contribution

It presents a novel interferometric device that sorts temporal Hermite-Gauss modes by mode-dependent phase shifts using a fractional Fourier transform.

Findings

Achieves mode sorting with adjustable temporal Gouy phase.

Theoretical lower bound on cross-talk probability is 5.5%.

Potential application in quantum mode sorting.

Abstract

We propose a device consisting of $m$ Mach-Zehnder interferometers and realizing sorting of first $2^m$ temporal Hermite-Gauss modes of light passing though it by adjusting the accumulated temporal Gouy phase acquired by every mode. This mode-order-dependent phase shift is achieved by a fractional Fourier transform realized by a time lens in one of interferometer's arms. We consider application of such a sorter with just two interferometers to sorting the Schmidt modes of a photon pair generated in spontaneous parametric downconversion and find the theoretical lower bond on the cross-talk probability of 5.5%.