Quantum Beat between Sunlight and Single Photons

Zhao-Chen Duan; Yu-Hao Deng; Ying Yu; Si Chen; Jian Qin; Hui Wang; Xing Ding; Li-Chao Peng; Christian Schneider; Da-Wei Wang; Sven Höfling; Jonathan P Dowling; Chao-Yang Lu; Jian-Wei Pan

doi:10.1021/acs.nanolett.9b03512

Quantum Beat between Sunlight and Single Photons

Nano Lett. 2020 Jan 8;20(1):152-157. doi: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.9b03512. Epub 2019 Dec 19.

Authors

Zhao-Chen Duan^{1

2}, Yu-Hao Deng^{1

2}, Ying Yu³, Si Chen^{1

2}, Jian Qin^{1

2}, Hui Wang^{1

2}, Xing Ding^{1

2}, Li-Chao Peng^{1

2}, Christian Schneider⁴, Da-Wei Wang⁵, Sven Höfling^{1

4

6}, Jonathan P Dowling^{1

7

8}, Chao-Yang Lu^{1

2}, Jian-Wei Pan^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Shanghai Branch, Department of Modern Physics and National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at Microscale , University of Science and Technology of China , Shanghai 201315 , China.
² CAS Center for Excellence and Synergetic Innovation Center in Quantum Information and Quantum Physics , University of Science and Technology of China , Hefei , Anhui 230026 , China.
³ State Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Materials and Technologies, School of Electronics and Information Technology, School of Physics , Sun Yat-sen University , Guangzhou , Guangdong 510275 , China.
⁴ Technische Physik, Physikalisches Institüt and Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen-Center for Complex Material Systems , Universitat Würzburg , Am Hubland, D-97074 Würzburg , Germany.
⁵ Department of Physics , Zhejiang University , Hangzhou , Zhejiang 310027 , China.
⁶ SUPA, School of Physics and Astronomy , University of St. Andrews , St. Andrews KY16 9SS , United Kingdom.
⁷ Hearne Institute for Theoretical Physics and Department of Physics and Astronomy , Louisiana State University , Baton Rouge , Louisiana 70803 , United States.
⁸ NYU-ECNU Institute for Physics at NYU Shanghai , Shanghai 200062 , China.

PMID: 31841348
DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.9b03512

Abstract

We demonstrate fourth-order quantum beat between sunlight and single photons from a quantum dot. With a fast time-resolved detection system, we observed high-visibility quantum beat between the independent photons of different frequencies from the two astronomically separated light sources. The temporal dynamics of the beat oscillation indicate the coherent behavior of the interfering photons, and the raw visibility of two-photon interference shows violation of the classical limit with a frequency mismatch of three-times the line width.

Keywords: Quantum dots; fourth-order interference; quantum beat; quantum information processing; single photons.