Observation of Young's double-slit interference with the three-photon N00N state

Abstract

Spatial interference of quantum mechanical particles exhibits a fundamental feature of quantum mechanics. A two-mode entangled state of N particles known as N00N state can give rise to non-classical interference. We report the first experimental observation of a three-photon N00N state exhibiting Young's double-slit type spatial quantum interference. Compared to a single-photon state, the three-photon entangled state generates interference fringes that are three times denser. Moreover, its interference visibility of 0.49 +/- 0.09 is well above the limit of 0.1 for spatial super-resolution of classical origin. (C) 2011 Optical Society of America