Deterministic Control of Photon-Number Probabilities via Phase-Controlled Quantum Interference

TL;DR

This paper presents a linear-optical method to deterministically generate and control photon-number states beyond single photons, enabling advanced quantum applications with scalable and platform-independent technology.

Contribution

The authors introduce a novel all-linear-optical protocol that converts single-photon emitters into deterministic multi-photon state generators with tunable photon-number probabilities.

Findings

Demonstrated dynamic control from antibunching to bunching in photon correlations.

Mapped photon statistics using a quantum model.

Predicted extension to NOON states with multiple emitters.

Abstract

Deterministically tailoring optical Fock states beyond the single-photon level is crucial for boson sampling, loss-tolerant photonic qubits, and quantum-enhanced sensing, however has yet remained elusive. Here, we report an all-linear-optical protocol that converts a resonantly driven single-photon emitter into a deterministic generator of vacuum--single-photon--two-photon states. A phase-stabilized, path-unbalanced Mach-Zehnder interferometer combines vacuum--single-photon interference and Hong-Ou-Mandel effect, providing two knobs to shape photon-number probabilities. By tuning these knobs, we observe a dynamic transition from antibunching to strong bunching in correlation measurements. A fully quantum-mechanical, discrete time-bin model maps these results onto the tailored photon statistics. The same framework predicts that two indistinguishable emitters would extend the accessible space to deterministic NOON states and single-photon filtering. This protocol relying on linear optics and available single-photon sources provides a scalable, chip-compatible, and platform-independent route to on-demand and deterministic few-photon resources for quantum metrology, photonic computing, as well as long-distance quantum networks.