Thomas, P J; Cheung, J Y; Chunnilall, C J; Dunn, M H* (2009) The Hong-Ou-Mandel interferometer; critical design aspects and a new procedure for alignment. Rev. Sci. Insrum., 80 (3). 036101

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Abstract

The critical design aspects of a free space Hong-Ou-Mandel interferometer illuminated with pair photons from a non-collinearly phasematched spontaneous parametric downconversion process are discussed. In particular the efficient generation and collection of pair photons at a specified wavelength and a procedure for constructing the interferometer are presented. Two major requirements in the construction are the alignment and length-balancing of two optical paths, which were achieved using a new method incorporating long and short coherence length light sources, and requiring no custom optics or expensive equipment. The method balanced the optical paths to within an average of 11.6 mm, considerably shortening set-up time and two-photon interference features with visibilities ~ 0.9 were produced. The importance of interferometer characterization is discussed in the context of the application of Hong-Ou-Mandel interferometry to single photon source evaluation.

Item Type:	Article
Subjects:	Optical Radiation and Photonics Optical Radiation and Photonics > Few Photon Science
Last Modified:	02 Feb 2018 13:15
URI:	https://eprintspublications.npl.co.uk/id/eprint/4391