Complete Deterministic Linear Optics Bell State Analysis

Abstract

We show how hyperentanglement allows us to deterministically distinguish between all four polarization Bell states of two photons. In this proof-of-principle experiment, we employ the intrinsic time-energy correlation of photon pairs generated with high temporal definition in addition to the polarization entanglement obtained from parametric down-conversion. For the identification, no nonlinear optical elements or auxiliary photons are needed. The new possibilities this complete Bell measurement offers are demonstrated by realizing an optimal dense coding protocol.