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Updated: Jan 11, 2026
A Photonic System for Generating Unconditional Polarization-Entangled Photons Based on Multiple Quantum Interference
Published on: September 5, 2019
Tutorial: Hong-Ou-Mandel interference with structured photons
Tareq Jaouni1, Xuemei Gu2, Mario Krenn2
1Nexus for Quantum Technologies, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, K1N 6N5, ON, Canada.
Abstract:
The Hong-Ou-Mandel (HOM) effect, an effective two-photon interference phenomenon, is a cornerstone of quantum optics and a key tool for linear optical quantum information processing. While the HOM effect has been extensively studied both theoretically and experimentally for various photonic quantum states, particularly in the spectral domain, detailed overviews of its behaviour for structured photons - those with complex spatial profiles - under arbitrary spatial mode measurement schemes are still lacking. This tutorial aims to fill this gap by providing a comprehensive theoretical analysis of the HOM effect for structured photons, including an arbitrary mode projection on quantum interference outcomes. The tutorial also provides analytical, closed-form expressions of the HOM visibility under different measurement conditions.
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