Abstract
We propose using a nonlinear Mach-Zehnder interferometer (NMZI) to efficiently prepare photonic quantum states from a classical input. We first analytically investigate the simple NMZI that can filtrate a single-photon state from weak coherent state by preferentially blocking a two-photon component. As a generalization, we show that the cascaded NMZI can deterministically extract an arbitrary quantum state from a strong coherent state. Finally, we numerically demonstrate that the cascaded NMZI can be very efficient in both the input power and the level of cascade. The protocol of quantum state preparation with the NMZI can be extended to various systems of bosonic modes.
- Received 15 August 2015
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.94.013841
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