Speaker
Description
We investigate the interference of two photons in an optical gating Michelson interferometer both theoretically and experimentally. Theoretically, the phenomenon is studied using two different representations of photons, the space-time domain and a step-by-step two-photon state evolution. Both representations lead to identical results. The evolution analysis describes the result by the interference of four two-photon traveling states, whereas the space-time domain analysis reveals that the classical interference of the high-intensity light source is identical to a two-photon interference in the quantum regime, except for a multiplicative factor of nC2, where n is the number of photons. Experimentally, the picosecond pulse with a 808-nm wavelength is used as a photon source and a second harmonic generation (SHG) process in BBO crystal as an optical AND gate. Then, the two-photon interference is measured through the SHG signal. The interference pattern agrees with the theoretical prediction.
