The goal of this research is to find out the effects of certain disturbances on the results of the Hanbury Brown-Twiss (HBT) experiment. The HBT experiment was performed to demonstrate the working...Show moreThe goal of this research is to find out the effects of certain disturbances on the results of the Hanbury Brown-Twiss (HBT) experiment. The HBT experiment was performed to demonstrate the working principles of the intensity interferometer. In order to model the disturbances a computer model of the HBT experiment was developed in Python. A total of three disturbances were modeled; detector efficiency, detector jitter, and detector dead time, and two types of light were modeled; Coherent and singlephoton light. Numerical experiments were performed to measure the effect of the disturbances on the measurements. For detector efficiency and dead time, a clear effect could be observed, but for the detector jitter, the results were dependent on the type of light being used.Show less
Can fluctuations be found in visible thermal light? To answer this three sections of literature research are included in which the following subjects will be explored: Spatial/temporal modes...Show moreCan fluctuations be found in visible thermal light? To answer this three sections of literature research are included in which the following subjects will be explored: Spatial/temporal modes/coherence, stellar interferometry and the second order correlation function (g(2)) for thermal light. The insights gained in these sections will be used for two experiments. The first experiment is designed to detect spatial fluctuations, which was achieved by a simple setup involving a double slit and two pinholes. The second experiment, designed to detect temporal fluctuations using the g(2) of a quasi-thermal light source, did not find significant results, which contradicts the results of a simulation of g(2) for thermal light.Show less
A cavity quantum electrodynamics system consisting of quantum dots in a micropillar cavity may form an essential building block for the creation of a quantum network. Current systems do not allow...Show moreA cavity quantum electrodynamics system consisting of quantum dots in a micropillar cavity may form an essential building block for the creation of a quantum network. Current systems do not allow for the scaling, in a simple manner, to a large network. Therefore, we introduce a scalable approach by coupling a micropillar cavity to single-mode fibers. The steps taken to achieve the fiber coupling are explained and the first tests for researching a fiber coupled cavity quantum electrodynamics system are shown. The first tests show that full input-output fiber based polarization control of a micropillar cavity at 3.5 K is possible which is important for a photon polarization based quantum network. Several experimental challenges are shown and discussed. Despite the experimental challenges, the first tests may pave the way for a more scalable approach for building a large-scale quantum network.Show less
In this thesis we study spatially entangled photon pairs created by frequency-degenerate parametric down-conversion from a 2 mm long type-I periodically poled KTP crystal pumped by 2 ps duration...Show moreIn this thesis we study spatially entangled photon pairs created by frequency-degenerate parametric down-conversion from a 2 mm long type-I periodically poled KTP crystal pumped by 2 ps duration laser pulses. We present measurements of spatial correlations between the entangled photon pairs and compare them to the same measurements performed with a 5 mm PPKTP crystal, shown in [1, paragraph 5.4.2]). For the 5 mm crystal, a peak of coincidences is observed in the collinear direction, which is not in accordance with theoretical predictions. The peak is attributed to quadruplets. We do not observe this extra peak for the 2 mm crystal. Furthermore, we find that the optical alignment is critical and depends on the type of fiber. We conclude that the collection efficiency of the detection units depends on the detection position and decreases away from the collinear direction. Although this observation is not understood, it may contribute to the extra peak. For further research, it is necessary to redesign the detection units to exclude the position dependence of the collection efficiency.Show less
