Abstract

An experiment where a single-photon wave packet is split into two parts, which are subsequently made to interact with an atom (or an ensemble of atoms) with a time delay much longer than the wave-packet coherence time is analysed. The set up is similar to a modified Young’s double slit experiment where a single photon has two possible paths to a point in space. When the photon probability amplitudes for both paths are simultaneously nonzero at some crossing point, an interference pattern, a single photon self interference, can be envisaged there.

© 1998 IEEE