IEEE Access (Jan 2021)

Post-Measurement Adjustment of the Coincidence Window in Quantum Optics Experiments

  • Jaime Carine,
  • Santiago A. Gomez,
  • Giannini F. Obregon,
  • Esteban S. Gomez,
  • Miguel Figueroa,
  • Gustavo Lima,
  • Guilherme B. Xavier

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2021.3093371
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 9
pp. 94010 – 94016

Abstract

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We report on an electronic coincidence detection circuit for quantum photonic applications implemented on a field-programmable gate array (FPGA), which records each the time separation between detection events coming from single-photon detectors. We achieve a coincidence window as narrow as 500 ps with a series of optimizations on a readily-available and affordable FPGA development board. Our implementation allows real-time visualization of coincidence measurements for multiple coincidence window widths simultaneously. To demonstrate the advantage of our high-resolution visualization, we certified the generation of polarized entangled photons by collecting data from multiple coincidence windows with minimal accidental counts, obtaining a violation of the Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt (CHSH) Bell inequality by more than 338 standard deviations. Our results have shown the applicability of our electronic design in the field of quantum information.

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