Heralded generation of vectorially structured photons with high purity
- 1Harbin University of Science and Technology, China
- 2Centro de Investigaciones en Optica, Mexico
- 3CAS Key Laboratory of Quantum Information, University of Science and Technology of China, China
Engineering vector spatial modes of photons is an important approach for manipulating high-dimension photonic states in various quantum optical experiments. In this work, we demonstrate generation of heralded single photons with well-defined vector spatial modes by using a self-locking polarizing interferometer comprising a spatial light modulator. Specifically, it is shown that, by carefully tailoring and compensating spatial and temporal amplitudes of manipulated photons, one can exactly convert ultrafast single photons into desired spin-orbit states with extremely high purity. This compact and robust device provides a versatile way for not only generation, but also manipulation and characterization of arbitrary photonic spin-orbit states.
Keywords: vector spatial modes, photonic spin-orbit coupling, Single photons, structured light, SLM
Received: 16 Jan 2021;
Accepted: 01 Mar 2021.
Copyright: © 2021 Wu, Yu, Zhu, Rosales-Guzmán, Zhou, Ding, Gao and Shi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Prof. Zhi-Han Zhu, Harbin University of Science and Technology, Harbin, China, zhuzhihan@hrbust.edu.cn
Mx. Bao-Sen Shi, Harbin University of Science and Technology, Harbin, China, drshi@ustc.edu.cn