Abstract

The Lau effect is an interference phenomenon in which two transmission gratings are located in tandem and illuminated incoherently. Here we report the experimental observation of the quantum Lau effect using a two-photon entangled source. Two experimental schemes are proposed and performed. In one scheme, two gratings are nonlocally set in two different paths of two field modes. However, in the other scheme, only one grating is employed to receive the two-mode photons. In both schemes, the Lau interference patterns can be reproduced in a two-photon coincidence measurement where one photon is collected by a bucket detector.

© 2013 Optical Society of America

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