Photon-number-resolved detection of photon-subtracted thermal light

Opt Lett. 2013 Jul 1;38(13):2171-3. doi: 10.1364/OL.38.002171.

Abstract

We examine the photon statistics of photon-subtracted thermal light using photon-number-resolved detection. We demonstrate experimentally that the photon number distribution transforms from a Bose-Einstein distribution to a Poisson distribution as the number of subtracted photons increases. We also show that second- and higher-order photon correlation functions can be directly determined from the photon-number-resolved detection measurements of a single optical beam.