1304.0304 (Rikizo Ikuta et al.)

Non-classical two-photon interference between independent telecom light
pulses converted by difference-frequency generation    [PDF]

Rikizo Ikuta, Toshiki Kobayashi, Hiroshi Kato, Shigehito Miki, Taro Yamashita, Hirotaka Terai, Mikio Fujiwara, Takashi Yamamoto, Masato Koashi, Masahide Sasaki, Zhen Wang, Nobuyuki Imoto

We experimentally demonstrated the Hong-Ou-Mandel (HOM) interference between two photons after visible-to-telecommunication wavelength conversion. In the experiment, we prepared a heralded single photon by using spontaneous parametric down-conversion and the other photon from a weak laser source at 780 nm. We converted the wavelength of both photons to the telecommunication wavelength of 1522 nm by using difference-frequency generation in a periodically-poled lithium niobate, and then observed the HOM interference between the photons. The observed visibility is $0.76\pm 0.12$ which clearly shows the non-classical interference of the two photons. The high-visibility interference is an important step for fiber-based quantum communications of photons generated from visible photon emitters.

View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1304.0304