Effective quantum efficiency in the pulsed homodyne detection of a n-photon state
Abstract
Homodyne detection can be used to perform measurements on various quantum states of the light, such as conditional single photon states produced by parametric fluorescence processes. In the pulsed regime, the time and frequency overlap between the single photon wave packet and the local oscillator eld plays a crucial role. We show in this paper that this overlap can be characterized by an eective quantum effciency, which is explicitly calculated in various situations of experimental interest.