Twin-beam sub-shot-noise raster-scanning microscope

By exploiting the quantised nature of light, we demonstrate a sub-shot-noise scanning optical transmittance microscope. Our microscope demonstrates, with micron scale resolution, a factor of improvement in precision of 1.76(9) in transmittance estimation gained per probe photon relative to the theoretical model, a shot-noise-limited source of light, in an equivalent single-pass classical version of the same experiment using the same number of photons detected with a 90% efficient detector. This would allow us to observe photosensitive samples with nearly twice the precision, without sacrificing image resolution or increasing optical power to improve signal-to-noise ratio. Our setup uses correlated twin-beams produced by parametric down-conversion, and a hybrid detection scheme comprising photon-counting-based feed-forward and a highly efficient CCD camera.

Two-photon interference between disparate sources for quantum networking

Quantum networks involve entanglement sharing between multiple users. Ideally, any two users would be able to connect regardless of the type of photon source they employ, provided they fulfill the requirements for two-photon interference. From a theoretical perspective, photons coming from different origins can interfere with a perfect visibility, provided they are made indistinguishable in all degrees of freedom. Previous experimental demonstrations of such a scenario have been limited to photon wavelengths below 900 nm, unsuitable for long distance communication, and suffered from low interference visibility. We report two-photon interference using two disparate heralded single photon sources, which involve different nonlinear effects, operating in the telecom wavelength range. The measured visibility of the two-photon interference is 80 ± 4%, which paves the way to hybrid universal quantum networks.

Narrowband high-fidelity all-fibre source of heralded single photons at 1570 nm

An all-fibre heralded single photon source operating at 1570 nm has been demonstrated. The device generates correlated photon pairs, widely spaced in frequency, through four-wave mixing in a photonic crystal fibre. Separation of the pair photons and narrowband filtering is all achieved in fibre. The output heralded single photon rate was 9.2 x 10(4) per second, with a counts-to-accidentals ratio of 10.4 and a heralding fidelity of 52 %. Furthermore, narrowband filtering ensured that the output single photon state was near time-bandwidth limited with a coherence length of 4 ps. Such a source is well suited to quantum information processing applications.