Tunable Quantum Interference in Free Space with a Liquid-Crystal Metagrating
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arXiv
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| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
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2026
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| _version_ | 1866908753921572864 |
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| author | Ammendola, Maria Gorizia Flores, Italo Machuca Dey, Sneha Di Colandrea, Francesco Nomerotski, Andrei Sephton, Bereneice Schiano, Carlo de Lisio, Corrado D'Ambrosio, Vincenzo Marrucci, Lorenzo Cameron, Patrick Cardano, Filippo |
| author_facet | Ammendola, Maria Gorizia Flores, Italo Machuca Dey, Sneha Di Colandrea, Francesco Nomerotski, Andrei Sephton, Bereneice Schiano, Carlo de Lisio, Corrado D'Ambrosio, Vincenzo Marrucci, Lorenzo Cameron, Patrick Cardano, Filippo |
| contents | Structured optical materials provide a promising platform for photonic quantum information processing in free space. Beam splitters, a fundamental building block of photonic circuits, have recently been demonstrated in free space using geometric-phase optical elements. These devices coherently mix circularly-polarized transverse modes of freely-propagating optical fields, including modes carrying orbital angular momentum. In this work, we investigate liquid-crystal metagratings as electrically tunable beam splitters for transverse-momentum optical modes. By exploiting the voltage-controlled birefringence of liquid-crystal metasurfaces, we experimentally tune the splitting ratio of the device and thereby control the degree of two-photon interference between indistinguishable photons. At the output, photons are spatially resolved on different regions of a time-resolved single-photon-sensitive detector, enabling the reconstruction of coincidence maps in the Fourier plane. This approach is readily scalable and enables highly parallel coincidence measurements across a large number of optical modes. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_04947 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Tunable Quantum Interference in Free Space with a Liquid-Crystal Metagrating Ammendola, Maria Gorizia Flores, Italo Machuca Dey, Sneha Di Colandrea, Francesco Nomerotski, Andrei Sephton, Bereneice Schiano, Carlo de Lisio, Corrado D'Ambrosio, Vincenzo Marrucci, Lorenzo Cameron, Patrick Cardano, Filippo Optics Structured optical materials provide a promising platform for photonic quantum information processing in free space. Beam splitters, a fundamental building block of photonic circuits, have recently been demonstrated in free space using geometric-phase optical elements. These devices coherently mix circularly-polarized transverse modes of freely-propagating optical fields, including modes carrying orbital angular momentum. In this work, we investigate liquid-crystal metagratings as electrically tunable beam splitters for transverse-momentum optical modes. By exploiting the voltage-controlled birefringence of liquid-crystal metasurfaces, we experimentally tune the splitting ratio of the device and thereby control the degree of two-photon interference between indistinguishable photons. At the output, photons are spatially resolved on different regions of a time-resolved single-photon-sensitive detector, enabling the reconstruction of coincidence maps in the Fourier plane. This approach is readily scalable and enables highly parallel coincidence measurements across a large number of optical modes. |
| title | Tunable Quantum Interference in Free Space with a Liquid-Crystal Metagrating |
| topic | Optics |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.04947 |