Quantum interference between spectral bandwidth mismatched photons

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates an efficient method using an electro-optic time lens to enable high-visibility two-photon interference between photons with mismatched spectral bandwidths, avoiding the need for spectral filtering.

Contribution

The authors experimentally show that an electro-optic time lens can significantly improve interference visibility between spectral-bandwidth mismatched photons, advancing hybrid quantum photonic technologies.

Findings

Increased Hong-Ou-Mandel interference visibility by over 12 times

Achieved non-classical interference without spectral filtering

Enabled integration of quantum systems with different time scales

Abstract

Two-photon interference is a cornerstone of photonic quantum technologies. However, its practical implementation in promising hybrid architectures is severely constrained by the requirement of photon wavepacket indistinguishability, in particular, in terms of the photon linewidth and associated time scale. While narrowband filtering can improve interference visibility, it introduces significant photon loss - a critical limitation for applications. Here, we experimentally demonstrate an efficient approach to enable non-classical two-photon interference between spectral-bandwidth mismatched photons using an electro-optic time lens. We increase the visibility of Hong-Ou-Mandel interference between photons of 10-fold spectral bandwidth mismatch by more than 12 times, achieving non-classical two-photon interference visibility without spectral filtering. This result opens the possibility to efficiently integrate quantum systems operating at different time scales for hybrid quantum communication, teleportation, entanglement swapping, distributed sensing, and hybrid quantum computing.