Two-photon interference: the Hong–Ou–Mandel effect

Abstract

Nearly 30 years ago, two-photon interference was observed, marking the beginning of a new quantum era. Indeed, two-photon interference has no classical analogue, giving it a distinct advantage for a range of applications. The peculiarities of quantum physics may now be used to our advantage to outperform classical computations, securely communicate information, simulate highly complex physical systems and increase the sensitivity of precise measurements. This separation from classical to quantum physics has motivated physicists to study two-particle interference for both fermionic and bosonic quantum objects. So far, two-particle interference has been observed with massive particles, among others, such as electrons and atoms, in addition to plasmons, demonstrating the extent of this effect to larger and more complex quantum systems. A wide array of novel applications to this quantum effect is to be expected in the future. This review will thus cover the progress and applications of two-photon (two-particle) interference over the last three decades.

Analysis of Photon Characteristics in Anticorrelation of a Hong-Ou-Mandel Dip for On-Demand Quantum Correlation Control

“…2a. The sidebands' wiggles have already been experimentally observed in the coincidence measurements for the spectrally reduced case [37][38][39], supporting for the justification and validity of the present analyses (see the Supplementary Information). ( , ) and intensity correlation (2) ( ) for Figs.…”

A Wave Nature-Based Interpretation of The Nonclassical Feature of Photon Bunching On A Beam Splitter

“…Although equation ( 3) is an unexpected and unprecedented result in both coherence and quantum optics with unentangled photons, the nonclassical feature in Fig. 1(a) still satisfies the classical lower bound of 𝑔 (2) (𝑡 = 0) = 0.5 due to the equal probability of basis combinations in equations ( 2) and (3) [8,35].…”

“…One of the most unique features of quantum mechanics is photon bunching on a beam splitter (BS), known as the Hong-Ou-Mandel (HOM) effect [1], where zero coincidence measurement between two output photons results from simultaneously impinging two indistinguishable input photons on a BS [1][2][3][4][5][6]. Using the particle nature of photons, destructive quantum interference between the reflected and transmitted photon probabilities on a BS is the physical reason of the photon bunching.…”

Noise limits on two-photon interferometric sensing

“…This is a limitation of the measurements which do not distinguish between the two photonic modes. In MZ1s and MZ2s we can recognise whether the photon(s) are detected in the same spatial mode they started or the opposite, as the 4 The central peaks (at δ → 0) coincide at 1 2 (4σ 2 + ω 2 p ) for MZ2s regardless of whether the photons are frequency-entangled or independent (full expressions given in Supplemental Material [40]). For MZ2d, however, the frequency-entangled peak is…”