Influence of coincidence detection of a biphoton state through free-space atmospheric turbulence using a partially spatially coherent pump
Samukelisiwe Purity Phehlukwayo, Marie Louise Umuhire, Yaseera Ismail, Stuti Joshi, Francesco Petruccione
Abstract
The development of a quantum network relies on the advances of hybrid systems which include ground-to-ground communication. However, the atmospheric turbulence of the environment poses a severe challenge to the optical quantum link. In this paper, we outline a theoretical and experimental investigation of the influence of atmospheric turbulence on the coincidence detection of the entangled photon pairs using a fully and partially spatially coherent pump beam. A spatial light modulator is encoded to mimic the atmospheric turbulence strength based on the Kolmogorov model of turbulence. The results show that the photon pairs generated using a partially spatially coherent pump are more robust towards varying atmospheric turbulence strengths than the photon pairs produced by a fully spatially coherent pump beam.