Abstract
Single photons exhibit inherently quantum and unintuitive properties such as the Hong-Ou-Mandel effect, demonstrating their bosonic and quantized nature, yet at the same time may correspond to single excitations of spatial or temporal modes with a very complex structure. Those two features are rarely seen together. Here we experimentally demonstrate how the Hong-Ou-Mandel effect can be spectrally resolved and harnessed to characterize a complex temporal mode of a single-photon—a zero-area pulse—obtained via a resonant interaction of a terahertz-bandwidth photon with a narrow gigahertz-wide atomic transition of atomic vapor. The combination of bosonic quantum behavior with bandwidth-mismatched light-atom interaction is of fundamental importance for deeper understanding of both phenomena, as well as their engineering offering applications in characterization of ultrafast transient processes.
- Received 5 May 2021
- Accepted 17 September 2021
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.127.163601
Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.
Published by the American Physical Society