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Modeling photo-detectors in quantum optics

Peter P. Rohde·Timothy C. Ralph
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Abstract

Photo-detection plays a fundamental role in experimental quantum optics and is of particular importance in the emerging field of linear optics quantum computing. Present theoretical treatment of photo-detectors is highly idealized and fails to consider many important physical effects. We present a physically motivated model for photo-detectors which accommodates for the effects of finite resolution, bandwidth and efficiency, as well as dark-counts and dead-time. We apply our model to two simple well known applications, which illustrates the significance of these characteristics.

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Peter P. Rohde, Timothy C. Ralph. 2005-11-10. Modeling photo-detectors in quantum optics. https://doi.org/10.1080/09500340600578369

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