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Hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) has recently been demonstrated to contain optically polarized and detected electron spins that can be utilized for implementing qubits and quantum sensors in nanolayered-devices. Understanding the coherent dynamics of microwave driven spins in hBN is of crucial importance for advancing these emerging new technologies. Here, we demonstrate and study the Rabi oscillation and related dynamical phenomena of the negatively charged boron vacancy ($\rm V_B^-$) spins in hBN. We report on different dynamics of the $\rm V_B^-$ spins at weak and strong magnetic fields. In the former case the defect behaves like a single electron spin system, while in the latter case it behaves like a multi-spin system exhibiting the multiple-frequency dynamical oscillation like clear beat in Ramsey fringes. We also carry out theoretical simulations for the spin dynamics of $\rm V_B^-$ and reveal that the nuclear spins can be driven via the strong electric-nuclear coupling existing in $\rm V_B^-$ center, which can be modulated by the magnetic field and microwave field., Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures

Non-reciprocal devices, such as circulators and isolators, are indispensable components in classical and quantum information processing in an integrated photonic circuit. Aside from those applications, the non-reciprocal phase shift is of fundamental interest for exploring exotic topological photonics, such as the realization of chiral edge states and topological protection. However, incorporating low optical-loss magnetic materials into a photonic chip is technically challenging. In this study, we experimentally demonstrate non-magnetic non-reciprocity using optomechanical interactions in a whispering-gallery microresonator, as proposed by Hafezi and Rabl. Optomechanically induced non-reciprocal transparency and amplification are observed, and a non-reciprocal phase shift of up to 40 degrees is demonstrated in this study. The results of this study represent an important step towards integrated all-optical controllable isolators and circulators, as well as non-reciprocal phase shifters., Comment: 5 pages, 4 Figures

In this Letter, we proposed and experimentally demonstrated a method to detect vector magnetic field with a single nitrogen vacancy (NV) center in diamond. The magnetic field in parallel with the axis of the NV center can be obtained by detecting the electron Zeeman shift, while the Larmor precession of an ancillary nuclear spin close to the NV center can be used to measure the field perpendicular to the axis. Experimentally, both the Zeeman shift and Larmor precession can be measured through the fluorescence from the NV center. By applying additional calibrated magnetic fields, complete information of the vector magnetic field can be achieved with such a method. This vector magnetic field detection method is insensitive to temperature fluctuation and it can be applied to nanoscale magnetic measurement., Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures

The detailed study of disembodiment of physical properties by pre- and post-selection is present. A criterion is given to disembody physical properties for single particle with multiple degrees of freedom. It is shown that the non-commute operators can also be well separated in different paths. We generalize the disembodiment to entangled particles, and found that the disembodiment can happen under special conditions due to the entanglement.

Plasmon mode in a silver nanowire is theoretically studied when the nanowire is placed on or near a silica substrate. It is found that the substrate has much influence on the plasmon mode. For the nanowire on the substrate, the plasmon (hybrid) mode possesses not only a long propagation length but also an ultrasmall mode area. From the experimental point of view, this cavity-free structure holds a great potential to study a strong coherent interaction between the plasmon mode and single quantum system (for example, quantum dots) embedded in the substrate., Comment: 3 pages, 3 figures

The mechanism of unidirectional emission of high Q Whispering Gallery mode in deformed circular micro- cavities is studied and firstly presented in this paper. In phase space, light in the chaotic sea leaks out the cavity through the refraction regions, whose positions are controlled by stable islands. Moreover, the positions of fixed points according to the critical line in unstable manifolds mainly determines the light leak out from which refraction region and the direction of the emission. By controlling the cavity shape, we can tune the leaky regions, as well as the positions of fixed points, to achieve unidirectional emission high Q cavities with narrow angular divergence both in high and low refractive index mater

The indistinguishability of independent single photons is presented by decomposing the single photon pulse into the mixed state of different transform limited pulses. The entanglement between single photons and outer environment or other photons induces the distribution of the center frequencies of those transform limited pulses and makes photons distinguishable. Only the single photons with the same transform limited form are indistinguishable. In details, the indistinguishability of single photons from the solid-state quantum emitter and spontaneous parametric down conversion is examined with two-photon Hong-Ou-Mandel interferometer. Moreover, experimental methods to enhance the indistinguishability are discussed, where the usage of spectral filter is highlighted., Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures

We describe and examine entanglement between different degrees of freedom in multiphoton states based on the permutation properties. From the state description, the entanglement comes from the permutation asymmetry. According to the different permutation properties, the multiphoton states can be divided into several parts. It will help to deal with the multiphoton interference, which can be used as the measurement of the entanglement., Comment: Final version

We propose and demonstrate experimentally a projection scheme to measure the quantum phase with a precision beating the standard quantum limit. The initial input state is a twin Fock state $|N,N>$ proposed by Holland and Burnett [Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 71}, 1355 (1993)] but the phase information is extracted by a quantum state projection measurement. The phase precision is about $1.4/N$ for large photon number $N$, which approaches the Heisenberg limit of 1/N. Experimentally, we employ a four-photon state from type-II parametric down-conversion and achieve a phase uncertainty of $0.291\pm 0.001$ beating the standard quantum limit of $1/\sqrt{N} = 1/2$ for four photons., Comment: 5 figures

Excitonic polaron is directly demonstrated for the first time in InAs/GaAs quantum dots with photoluminescence method. A new peak ($s'$) below the ground state of exciton ($s$) comes out as the temperature varies from 4.2 K to 285 K, and a huge anticrossing energy of 31 meV between $s'$ and $s$ is observed at 225 K, which can only be explained by the formation of excitonic polaron. The results also provide a strong evidence for the invalidity of Huang-Rhys formulism in dealing with carrier-longitudinal optical phonon interaction in quantum dot. Instead, we propose a simple two-band model, and it fits the experimental data quite well. The reason for the finding of the anticrossing is also discussed., Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures

By using an asymmetric beam splitter, we observe the generalized Hong-Ou-Mandel effects for three and four photons, respectively. Furthermore, we can use this generalized Hong-Ou-Mandel interferometer to characterize temporal distinguishability., Comment: to be published in the proceedings of Coherence and Quantum Optics 9

We construct a linear optics measurement process to determine the entanglement measure, named \emph{I-concurrence}, of a set of $4 \times 4$ dimensional two-photon entangled pure states produced in the optical parametric down conversion process. In our experiment, an \emph{equivalent} symmetric projection for the two-fold copy of single subsystem (presented by L. Aolita and F. Mintert, Phys. Rev. Lett. \textbf{97}, 050501 (2006)) can be realized by observing the one-side two-photon coincidence without any triggering detection on the other subsystem. Here, for the first time, we realize the measurement for entanglement contained in bi-photon pure states by taking advantage of the indistinguishability and the bunching effect of photons. Our method can determine the \emph{I-concurrence} of generic high dimensional bipartite pure states produced in parametric down conversion process., Comment: 4 figures

In this paper, photonic entanglement and interference are described and analyzed with the language of quantum information process. Correspondingly, a photon state involving several degrees of freedom is represented in a new expression based on the permutation symmetry of bosons. In this expression, each degree of freedom of a single photon is regarded as a qubit and operations on photons as qubit gates. The two-photon Hong-Ou-Mandel interference is well interpreted with it. Moreover, the analysis reveals the entanglement between different degrees of freedom in a four-photon state from parametric down conversion, even if there is no entanglement between them in the two-photon state. The entanglement will decrease the state purity and photon interference visibility in the experiments on a four-photon polarization state., Comment: 11 pages and 2 figures

Stimulated emission of two photons is observed experimentally in the parametric amplification process and is compared to a three-photon interference scheme. We find that the underlying physics of stimulated emission is simply the constructive interference due to photon indistinguishability. So the observed signal enhancement upon the input of photons is a result of multi-photon interference of the input photons and the otherwise spontaneously emitted photon from the amplifier.

Two experiments of four-photon interference are performed with two pairs of photons from parametric down-conversion with the help of asymmetric beam splitters. The first experiment is a generalization of the Hong-Ou-Mandel interference effect to two pairs of photons while the second one utilizes this effect to demonstrate a four-photon de Broglie wavelength of $\lambda/4$ by projection measurement.

Two schemes of projection measurement are realized experimentally to demonstrate the de Broglie wavelength of three photons without the need for a maximally entangled three-photon state (the NOON state). The first scheme is based on the proposal by Wang and Kobayashi (Phys. Rev. A {\bf 71}, 021802) that utilizes a couple of asymmetric beam splitters while the second one applies the general method of NOON state projection measurement to three-photon case. Quantum interference of three photons is responsible for projecting out the unwanted states, leaving only the NOON state contribution in these schemes of projection measurement., Comment: 8 pages

Multi-photon interference is at the heart of the recently proposed linear optical quantum computing scheme and plays an essential role in many protocols in quantum information. Indistinguishability is what leads to the effect of quantum interference. Optical interferometers such as Michaelson interferometer provide a measure for second-order coherence at one-photon level and Hong-Ou-Mandel interferometer was widely employed to describe two-photon entanglement and indistinguishability. However, there is not an effective way for a system of more than two photons. Recently, a new interferometric scheme was proposed to quantify the degree of multi-photon distinguishability. Here we report an experiment to implement the scheme for three-photon case. We are able to generate three photons with different degrees of temporal distinguishability and demonstrate how to characterize them by the visibility of three-photon interference. This method of quantitative description of multi-photon indistinguishability will have practical implications in the implementation of quantum information protocols.

An experiment is performed to demonstrate the temporal distinguishability of a four-photon state and a six-photon state, both from parametric down-conversion. The experiment is based on a multi-photon interference scheme in a recent discovered NOON-state projection measurement. By measuring the visibility of the interference dip, we can distinguish the various scenarios in the temporal distribution of the pairs and thus quantitatively determine the degree of temporal (in)distinguishability of a multi-photon state.

A measurement process is constructed to project an arbitrary two-mode $N$-photon state to a maximally entangled $N$-photon state (the {\it NOON}-state). The result of this projection measurement shows a typical interference fringe with an $N$-photon de Broglie wavelength. For an experimental demonstration, this measurement process is applied to a four-photon superposition state from two perpendicularly oriented type-I parametric down-conversion processes. Generalization to arbitrary $N$-photon states projection measurement can be easily made and may have wide applications in quantum information. As an example, we formulate it for precision phase measurement.

We construct a projection measurement process for the maximally entangled N-photon state (the NOON-state) with only linear optical elements and photodetectors. This measurement process will give null result for any N-photon state that is orthogonal to the NOON state. We examine the projection process in more detail for N=4 by applying it to a four-photon state from type-II parametric down-conversion. This demonstrates an orthogonal projection measurement with a null result. This null result corresponds to a dip in a generalized Hong-Ou-Mandel interferometer for four photons. We find that the depth of the dip in this arrangement can be used to distinguish a genuine entangled four-photon state from two separate pairs of photons. We next apply the NOON state projection measurement to a four-photon superposition state from two perpendicularly oriented type-I parametric down-conversion processes. A successful NOON state projection is demonstrated with the appearance of the four-photon de Broglie wavelength in the interference fringe pattern., Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, new title, some content change, replaced Fig.1