Passively stabilized single-photon interferometer

Abstract

A single-photon interferometer is a fundamental element in quantum information science. In most previously reported works, single-photon interferometers use an active feedback locking system to stabilize the relative phase between two arms of the interferometer. Here, we use a pair of beam displacers to construct a passively stable single-photon interferometer. The relative phase stabilization between the two arms is achieved by stabilizing the temperature of the beam displacers. A purely polarized single-photon-level pulse is directed into the interferometer input port. By analyzing and measuring the polarization states of the single-photon pulse at the output port, the achieved polarization fidelity of the interferometer is about 99.1±0.1%. Our passively stabilized single-photon interferometer provides a key element for generating high-fidelity entanglement between a photon and atomic memory.