Seminar: Michał Karpiński, Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw

Phase-only shaping of single-photon pulses

Single-photon wave-packets find multiple applications in quantum information processing, communication and quantum networking. The ability to coherently modify the spectral and temporal properties of single-photon pulses is necessary to fully exploit their potential for photonic quantum technologies. Classical techniques for shaping of short optical pulses cannot be directly mapped to shaping of quantum light pulses due to the use of lossy filtering and amplification. I will discuss our progress towards arbitrary shaping of single-photon pulses using phase-only operations, where the probability amplitude is redistributed in time and spectrum. In particular, I will present experimental conversion between picosecond single-photons and sub-microsecond single photons, with an accompanying rescaling of their spectral bandwidth by a factor exceeding 200. The conversion is enabled by fast wideband electro-optic phase modulation, highly dispersive media, and the concepts of temporal optics. I will discuss possible applications in photonic interfacing of quantum absorbers and emitters.