https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/s13360-022-03104-9
Regular Article
All-optical input-agnostic polarization transformer via experimental Kraus-map control
1
Department of Physics and Engineering Physics, Tulane University, 6823 St. Charles Avenue, 70118, New Orleans, LA, USA
2
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, 2575 Sand Hill Road, 94305, Menlo Park, CA, USA
d
rglasser@tulane.edu
e
dbondar@tulane.edu
Received:
18
February
2022
Accepted:
25
July
2022
Published online:
17
August
2022
The polarization of light is utilized in many technologies throughout science and engineering. The ability to transform one state of polarization to another is a key enabling technology. Common polarization transformers are simple polarizers and polarization rotators. Simple polarizers change the intensity depending on the input state and can only output a fixed polarized state, while polarization rotators rotates the input Stokes vector in the 3D Stokes space. We experimentally demonstrate an all-optical input-agnostic polarization transformer (AI-APT), which transforms all input states of polarization to a particular state that can be polarized or partially polarized. The output state of polarization and intensity depends solely on setup parameters, and not on the input state, thereby the AI-APT functions differently from simple polarizers and polarization rotators. The AI-APT is completely passive, and thus can be used as a polarization controller or stabilizer for single photons and ultrafast pulses. To achieve this, we, for the first time, experimentally realize complete kinematic state controllability of an open single-qubit by Kraus maps put forth in Wu et al. (J Phys A 40:5681, 2007). The AI-APT may open a new frontier of partially polarized ultrafast optics.
Wenlei Zhang and Ravi Saripalli have been contributed equally to this work.
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