University of Waterloo

Published purpose

The goal is to develop ultrafast pulse sensing methods for single photons with a measurement efficiency three orders of magnitude higher than previous experiments. This project combines work from two different labs: A highefficiency ultrafast Kerr switch developed by the NRC group, and a QuantumFROG technique designed to measure the amplitude and phase of an energytime entangled state developed by the Waterloo group. The Kerr switch will replace the temporal measurement technique in Quantum-FROG to increase detection efficiency. To effectively combine the work from these two labs, theoretical and experimental milestones must be met. A propagation model that accurately accounts for dispersion and Kerr nonlinearity must be built. Two Kerr switches, one for each photon in an entangled pair, must be built and optimized for switching speed and efficiency. Lastly, the algorithm that recovers amplitude and phase of the entangled state must be modified to work with finite time resolution.