Quantum optical tomography based on time-resolved and mode-selective single-photon detection by femtosecond up-conversion.

We developed an optical time-of-flight measurement system using a time-resolved and mode-selective up-conversion single-photon detector for acquiring tomographic images of a mouse brain. The probe and pump pulses were spectrally carved from a 100-femtosecond mode-locked fiber laser at 1556 nm using 4f systems, so that their center wavelengths were situated at either side of the phase matching band separated by 30 nm. We demonstrated a sensitivity of 111 dB which is comparable to that of shot-noise-limited optical coherence tomography and an axial resolution of 57 µm (a refractive index of 1.37) with 380 femtosecond probe and pump pulses whose average powers were 1.5 mW and 30 µW, respectively. The proposed technique will open a new way of non-contact and non-invasive three-dimensional structural imaging of biological specimens with ultraweak optical irradiation.

Continuous quantum walk in a 1-dimensional plasmonic lattice structure based on metal strip waveguides.

We experimentally studied a continuous time evolution of a "plasmonic" walker in a 1-dimensional lattice structure based on long-range surface plasmon polariton waveguides. The plasmonic walker exhibited a typical time evolution of a 1-dimensional quantum walk, which indicates that the plasmonic system is a potential platform to construct quantum walk simulators. By comparing experimental results to numerical simulations, the fidelity of the plasmonic quantum walk simulator is estimated to be > 0.96, which demonstrates that the plasmonic system can be a feasible platform for large-scale and high dimensional quantum walk simulators.

Investigation of third-order dispersion of long-range surface-plasmon-polariton waveguides using a Hong-Ou-Mandel interferometer.

High-order dispersion of long-range surface-plasmon-polariton waveguides (LR-SPP-WGs) have been investigated using a two-photon interferometer. Since linear and even-ordered dispersions in two-photon interferometry are cancelled out by a nonlocal quantum correlation, odd-ordered dispersions of millimeter-long LR-SPP-WGs are revealed. Even under the highly dispersive condition, the indistinguishability between two photons emerged from LR-SPP-WGs was well preserved. In addition, we demonstrated a strong polarization-selection by the LR-SPP-WGs that leads to the polarization-stable and high-fidelity quantum interference.

Binary phase oscillation of two mutually coupled semiconductor lasers.

A two-site Ising model is implemented as an injection-locked laser network consisting of a single master laser and two mutually coupled slave lasers. We observed ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic orders in the in-phase and out-of-phase couplings between the two slave lasers. Their phase difference is locked to either 0 or π even if the coupling path is continuously modulated. The system automatically selects the oscillation frequency to satisfy the in-phase or out-of-phase coupling condition, when the mutual coupling dominates over the injection-locking by the master laser.

Preservation of photon indistinguishability after transmission through surface-plasmon-polariton waveguide.

We experimentally demonstrated preservation of indistinguishability between two photons via mode conversions, namely, photon-to-plasmon and plasmon-to-photon conversions. A two-photon interference experiment was carried out using a broadband photon pair generated through a spontaneous parametric downconversion process. We observed the so-called Hong-Ou-Mandel dip with an interferometer including a 1-mm-long surface-plasmon-polariton (SPP) waveguide. The photon indistinguishability of 92.4% was retained after propagation in the SPP waveguide.

Generation of polarization entangled photon pairs at telecommunication wavelength using cascaded χ2 processes in a periodically poled LiNbO3 ridge waveguide.

We report the generation of high-purity correlated photon-pairs and polarization entanglement in a 1.5 µm telecommunication wavelength-band using cascaded χ((2)):χ((2)) processes, second-harmonic generation (SHG) and the following spontaneous parametric down conversion (SPDC), in a periodically poled LiNbO(3) (PPLN) ridge-waveguide device. By using a PPLN module with 600%/W of the SHG efficiency, we have achieved a coincidence-to-accidental ratio (CAR) higher than 4000 at 7.45×10(-5) of the mean number of the photon-pair per pulse. We also demonstrated that the maximum reach of the CAR was truly dark-count-limited by the single-photon detectors used here. This indicates that the fake (noise) photons were negligibly small in this system, even though the photon-pairs, the Raman noise photons, and the pump photons were in the same wavelength band. Polarization entangled photon pairs were also generated by constructing a Sagnac-loop-type interferometer which included the PPLN module and an optical phase-difference compensator to observe maximum entanglement. We achieved two-photon interference visibilities of 99.6% in the H/V basis and 98.7% in the diagonal basis. The peak coincidence count rate was approximately 50 counts per second at 10(-3) of the mean number of the photon-pair per pulse.

1.5 GHz single-photon detection at telecommunication wavelengths using sinusoidally gated InGaAs/InP avalanche photodiode.

We report a telecom-band single-photon detector for gigahertz clocked quantum key distribution systems. The single-photon detector is based on a sinusoidally gated InGaAs/InP avalanche photodiode. The gate repetition frequency of the single-photon detector reached 1.5 GHz. A quantum efficiency of 10.8 % at 1550 nm was obtained with a dark count probability per gate of 6.3 x 10(-7) and an afterpulsing probability of 2.8 %. Moreover, the maximum detection rate of the detector is 20 MHz.

Bright narrowband source of photon pairs at optical telecommunication wavelengths using a type-II periodically poled lithium niobate waveguide.

We report on the generation of narrowband photon pairs at telecommunication wavelengths using a periodically poled lithium niobate waveguide that utilizes the nonlinear tensor element d(24) for type-II quasi phase matching. The FWHM bandwidth of the spontaneous parametric downconversion was 1 nm. The brightness of the photon pair source was ~6x10(5)/s/GHz when the pump power was 1 mW. The indistinguishability of the signal and idler photons generated by the degenerate spontaneous parametric downconversion process was studied in a Hong-Ou-Mandel type interference experiment.

Quantum key distribution over an installed multimode optical fiber local area network.

We have investigated the possibility of a multimode fiber link for a quantum channel. Transmission of light in an extremely underfilled mode distribution promises a single-mode-like behavior in the multimode fiber. To demonstrate the performance of the fiber link we performed quantum key distribution, on the basis of the BB84 four-state protocol, over 550 m of an installed multimode optical fiber local area network, and the quantum-bit-error rate of 1.09 percent was achieved.

Single-photon detector for long-distance fiber-optic quantum key distribution.

We have investigated the performance of an InGaAs/InP avalanche photodiode for photon counting at 1550 nm in the temperature range of thermoelectric cooling. A quantum efficiency of 13.7% was obtained at -55 degrees C , while the dark-count probability per gate (?1 ns) was kept as small as 2.4x10(-5) . The developed single-photon detector would yield a 104.4-km fiber-optic quantum key distribution in the ideal condition.