Have you ever thought of using superconducting single-photon detectors for homodyne detection? In our newest publication we show how we used superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPDs) to study the continuous variables of optical quantum states using homodyne detection. From the joint click statistics of two SNSPDs we measured the phase-dependent quadrature of a weak coherent state, which was interfered with a continuous wave local oscillator in our setup. Due to the unmatched signal-to-noise ratio of SNSPDs, we additionally report the highest shot-noise clearance for a balanced optical homodyne detector.
The paper is available at:
https://doi.org/10.1364/OPTICAQ.502201
