
AbstractMeasuring the state of a quantum system is a fundamental process in quantum mechanics and plays an essential role in quantum information and quantum technologies. One method to measure a quantum observable is to sort the system in different spatial modes according to the measured value, followed by single-particle detectors on each mode. Examples of quantum sorters are polarizing beam-splitters (PBS) – which direct photons according to their polarization – and Stern-Gerlach devices. Here we propose a general scheme to sort a quantum system according to the value of any d-dimensional degree of freedom, such as spin, orbital angular momentum (OAM), wavelength etc. Our scheme is universal, works at the single-particle level and has a theoretical efficiency of 100%. As an application we design an efficient OAM sorter consisting of a single multi-path interferometer which is suitable for a photonic chip implementation.
Quantum Physics, FOS: Physical sciences, Quantum Physics (quant-ph), Article, Physics - Optics, Optics (physics.optics)
Quantum Physics, FOS: Physical sciences, Quantum Physics (quant-ph), Article, Physics - Optics, Optics (physics.optics)
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| influence This indicator reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically). | Top 10% | |
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