High-Order Coherences of Chaotic and Coherent Optical States

Published

January 12, 2010

Author(s)

Martin J. Stevens, Burm Baek, Eric Dauler, Andrew J. Kerman, Richard J. Molnar, Scott A. Hamilton, Karl Berggren, Richard P. Mirin, Sae Woo Nam

Abstract

We demonstrate a new approach to measuring high-order temporal coherences that uses a four-element superconducting nanowire single-photon detector. The four independent, interleaved single-photonsensitive elements parse a single spatial mode of an optical beam over dimensions smaller than the minimum diffraction-limited spot size. Integrating this device with four-channel time-tagging electronics to generate multi-start, multi-stop histograms enables measurement of temporal coherences up to fourth order for a continuous range of all associated time delays. We observe high-order photon bunching from a chaotic, pseudo-thermal light source, measuring maximum third- and fourth-order coherence values of 5.87 ± 0.17 and 23.1 ± 1.8, respectively, in agreement with the theoretically predicted values of 3! = 6 and 4! = 24. Laser light, by contrast, is confirmed to have coherence values of approximately 1 for second, third and fourth orders at all time delays.

Citation

Optics Express

Volume

18

Issue

2

Pub Type

Journals

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Keywords

coherence, photon Correlations, single-photon detectors

Citation

Stevens, M. , Baek, B. , Dauler, E. , Kerman, A. , Molnar, R. , Hamilton, S. , Berggren, K. , Mirin, R. and Nam, S. (2010), High-Order Coherences of Chaotic and Coherent Optical States, Optics Express, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=902803 (Accessed October 9, 2025)