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Coherent backscattering of entangled photon pairs

Nature Physics (2023)Cite this article

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Abstract

Correlations between entangled photons are a key ingredient for testing fundamental aspects of quantum mechanics and an invaluable resource for quantum technologies. However, scattering from a dynamic medium typically scrambles and averages out such correlations. Here we show that multiply scattered entangled photons reflected from a dynamic complex medium remain partially correlated. In experiments and full-wave simulations we observe enhanced correlations, within an angular range determined by the transport mean free path, which prevail over disorder averaging. Theoretical analysis reveals that this enhancement arises from the interference between scattering trajectories, in which the photons leave the sample and are then virtually reinjected back into it. These paths are the quantum counterpart of the paths that lead to the coherent backscattering of classical light. This work points to opportunities for entanglement transport despite dynamic multiple scattering in complex systems.

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Fig. 1: Classical and quantum coherent backscattering.
Fig. 2: Experimental observation of two-photon and one-photon coherent backscattering.
Fig. 3: 2p-CBS and 1p-CBS widths against the diffuser–mirror spacing L.
Fig. 4: Two-photon coherent backscattering from disordered samples in multiple-scattering regime.

Data availability

Source data are provided with this paper. All other data that support the plots within this paper and other findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Code availability

Simulations performed in this work use the augmented partial factorization method implemented in software MESTI, available at https://github.com/complexphoton/MESTI.m.

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Acknowledgements

Funding: Zuckerman STEM Leadership Program, the Israel Science Foundation (grant no. 2497/21), National Science Foundation (ECCS-2146021), LABEX WIFI (Laboratory of Excellence within the French Program ‘Investments for the Future’) under references ANR-10-LABX-24 and ANR-10-IDEX-0001-02 PSL*.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Racah Institute of Physics, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel

    Mamoon Safadi, Ohad Lib & Yaron Bromberg

  2. Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Ho-Chun Lin & Chia Wei Hsu

  3. ESPCI Paris, PSL University, CNRS, Institut Langevin, Paris, France

    Arthur Goetschy

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  1. Mamoon Safadi
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Contributions

M.S., O.L. and Y.B. conceived the idea and designed the experiments. M.S. built the experimental setup, performed the measurements and developed the theory for the double-passage configuration. A.G. developed the theory in the multiple-scattering regime and Fisher information analysis. H.-C.L. and C.W.H. performed the numerical simulations. All authors analysed the results and contributed to the manuscript preparation.

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Correspondence to Yaron Bromberg.

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Nature Physics thanks Mauro Paternostro, Bienvenu Ndagano and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary Figs. 1–12 and Discussion.

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Source data for Fig. 2b,f.

Source Data Fig. 3

Source data for Fig. 3.

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Source data for Fig. 4b,c.

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Safadi, M., Lib, O., Lin, HC. et al. Coherent backscattering of entangled photon pairs. Nat. Phys. (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-022-01895-3

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