Interferometry with few photons

Fuente: arXiv
Salvato in:
Dettagli Bibliografici
Autori principali: Stefano, Q. Pears, Magnoni, A. G., Rodrigues, D., Tiffenberg, J., Iemmi, C.
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2024
Soggetti:
Accesso online:
Tags: Aggiungi Tag
Nessun Tag, puoi essere il primo ad aggiungerne!!
_version_ 1866909113307365376
author Stefano, Q. Pears
Magnoni, A. G.
Rodrigues, D.
Tiffenberg, J.
Iemmi, C.
author_facet Stefano, Q. Pears
Magnoni, A. G.
Rodrigues, D.
Tiffenberg, J.
Iemmi, C.
contents Optical phase determination is an important and established tool in diverse fields such as astronomy, biology, or quantum optics. There is increasing interest in using a lower number of total photons. However, different noise sources, such as electronic readout noise in the detector, and shot noise, hamper the phase estimation in regimes of very low illumination. Here we report a study on how the quality of phase determination is affected by these two sources of noise. To that end, we experimentally reconstruct different wavefronts by means of a point diffraction interferometer for different mean intensities of illumination, up to $15\ \mathrm{phot/px}$. Our interferometer features a Skipper-CCD sensor, which allows us to reduce the readout noise arbitrarily, thus enabling us to separate the effect of these two sources of noise. For two cases of interest: a spatial qudit encoding phase, consisting of d = 6 uniform phase regions, and a more general continuous phase, we see that reducing the readout noise leads to a clear improvement in the quality of reconstruction. This can be explained by a simple noise model that allows us to predict the expected fidelity of reconstruction and shows excellent agreement with the measurements.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2402_13157
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Interferometry with few photons
Stefano, Q. Pears
Magnoni, A. G.
Rodrigues, D.
Tiffenberg, J.
Iemmi, C.
Quantum Physics
Instrumentation and Detectors
Optics
Optical phase determination is an important and established tool in diverse fields such as astronomy, biology, or quantum optics. There is increasing interest in using a lower number of total photons. However, different noise sources, such as electronic readout noise in the detector, and shot noise, hamper the phase estimation in regimes of very low illumination. Here we report a study on how the quality of phase determination is affected by these two sources of noise. To that end, we experimentally reconstruct different wavefronts by means of a point diffraction interferometer for different mean intensities of illumination, up to $15\ \mathrm{phot/px}$. Our interferometer features a Skipper-CCD sensor, which allows us to reduce the readout noise arbitrarily, thus enabling us to separate the effect of these two sources of noise. For two cases of interest: a spatial qudit encoding phase, consisting of d = 6 uniform phase regions, and a more general continuous phase, we see that reducing the readout noise leads to a clear improvement in the quality of reconstruction. This can be explained by a simple noise model that allows us to predict the expected fidelity of reconstruction and shows excellent agreement with the measurements.
title Interferometry with few photons
topic Quantum Physics
Instrumentation and Detectors
Optics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.13157