Photon statistics of light fields based on single-photon-counting modules
Abstract
Single-photon-counting modules (SPCM’s), with their high quantum efficiency, have been widely used to investigate effectively the photon statistics of various light sources, such as the single-photon state and emission light from controlled molecules, atoms, and quantum dots. However, such SPCM’s cannot distinguish the arrivals of one photon and two (or more than two) photons at a moment, which makes measurement correction in real experiments. We analyze the effect of SPCM’s on photon statistics based on the Hanbury-Brown-Twiss configuration when the total efficiency and background are considered, and it shows that the measured second-order degree of coherence and Mandel Q factor for different quantum states, including single-photon states and squeezed vacuum states, are corrected in different forms. A way of determining the squeezing of a squeezed vacuum state based on single-photon detection is presented.
- Publication:
-
Physical Review A
- Pub Date:
- February 2005
- DOI:
- 10.1103/PhysRevA.71.023807
- Bibcode:
- 2005PhRvA..71b3807L
- Keywords:
-
- 42.50.Ar;
- 42.50.Dv;
- 03.65.Ta;
- Photon statistics and coherence theory;
- Nonclassical states of the electromagnetic field including entangled photon states;
- quantum state engineering and measurements;
- Foundations of quantum mechanics;
- measurement theory