Manipulation Of The Temporal Modes Of Single Photons In Cold Atomic Ensemble

We generate heralded single photons in a cold ⁸⁵Rb atomic ensemble from spontaneous four wave mixing process.By adjusting the experimental parameters,such as coupling and pump powers and the optical depth of the atomic ensemble,we tailor out two different kinds of temporal modes.The phase information of the temporal modes is obtained by balance homodyne detection.Further,from our initial theoretical calculations,we can distinguish these two temporal modes in an unbalance Mach-Zehnder?M-Z?interferometer by observing their interference fringe.We set up the unbalance M-Z interferometer,and the opposite interference fringe of these two temporally shaped single photons are obtained.The interferometric results match well with the theoretical simulation.The best visibility of the single-photon interference between these two distinguished temporal modes is 85.7%.