Quantum state reconstruction and tomography using phase-sensitive light detection

Abstract

In this thesis we present an optical and electronic setup that is capable of performing coherent state tomography. We fully characterize it in order to verify whether or not it will be capable to perform non-demolition homodyne detection of squeezed light in a high-finesse cavity QED setup with an ensemble of Cesium atoms coupled to the cavity. After quantifying sources of noise, the photodiode efficiency, we perform a series of measurements of low photon number coherent states and compare them against the standard quantum limit. We discuss a variety of technical challenges encountered in such systems and some methods to overcome them. Lastly, we test the apparatus' ability to do quantum state tomography and quantum state reconstruction by reconstructing the density matrix and Wigner functions for low photon-number coherent states.