Four-Photon Interference with Asymmetric Beam Splitters

Abstract

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 $λ/4$ by projection measurement.