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Direct, Loss-Tolerant Characterization of Nonclassical Photon Statistics

Daryl Achilles·Christine Silberhorn·Ian A. Walmsley
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Abstract

We experimentally investigate a method of directly characterizing the photon number distribution of nonclassical light beams that is tolerant to losses and makes use only of standard binary detectors. This is achieved in a single measurement by calibrating the detector using some small amount of prior information about the source. We demonstrate the technique on a freely propagating heralded two-photon number state created by conditional detection of a two-mode squeezed state generated by a parametric downconverter.

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Daryl Achilles, Christine Silberhorn, Ian A. Walmsley. 2006-06-20. Direct, Loss-Tolerant Characterization of Nonclassical Photon Statistics. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.97.043602

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