We report a new method to deeply analyze the scrambling characteristic of polarization scramblers based on density of polarization states (DPS) statistics that makes it possible to describe the DPS distribution in detail on the whole Poincaré sphere, thus easy to locate accurately the nonuniform areas of defective polarization scramblers, which cannot be realized by existing methods. We have built a polarization scrambling system to demonstrate the advantages of our method compared with others by experiments and suggested effective evaluation indexes whose validity is well confirmed by applying to a commercial scrambler. Our conclusions are valuable for accurately analyzing and diagnosing the performance of any polarization scrambler, and quality evaluation of polarization controllers or other polarization devices.

We propose and demonstrate a novel scheme of semi-open-loop polarization control (SOL-PC), which controls the state of polarization (SOP) with high accuracy and uniform high speed. For any desired SOP, we first adjust the initial SOP using open-loop control (OLC) based on the matrix model of a three-unit piezoelectric polarization controller, and quickly move it close to the objective one. Then closed-loop control (CLC) is performed to reduce the error and reach precisely the desired SOP. The response time is three orders faster than that of the present closed-loop polarization control, while the average deviation is on par with it. Finally, the SOL-PC system is successfully applied to realize the suppression of the polarization mode dispersion (PMD) effect and reduce the first-order PMD to near zero. Due to its perfect performance, the SOL-PC energizes the present polarization control to pursue an ideal product that can meet the future requirements in ultrafast optical transmission and quantum communication.

We demonstrate an ultralow-noise single-photon detection system based on a sensitive photomultiplier tube (PMT) with precise temperature control, which can capture fast single photons with intervals around 10 ns. By improvement of the electromagnetic shielding and introduction of the self-differencing method, the dark counts (DCs) are cut down to ～1%. We further develop an ultra-stable PMT cooling subsystem and observe that the DC goes down by a factor of 3.9 each time the temperature drops 10°C. At 20°C it is reduced 400 times with respect to the room temperature (25°C), that is, it becomes only 2 counts per second, which is on par with the superconducting nanowire detectors. Meanwhile, despite a 50% loss, the detection efficiency is still 13%. Our detector is available for ultra-precise single-photon detection in environments with strong electromagnetic disturbances.

Polarization-based optical communications are attracting more attention recently, where the crucial points are polarization features and their measurements. Based on the Müller matrix method, we obtain measurable expressions for the polarization-dependent gain (PDG) and the loss of polarization orthogonality (LPO), while give the boundary of the LPO for any PDG devices. We experimentally demonstrate that non-linear LPO can be created in a semiconductor optical amplifier and find that the LPO will slightly skim over the boundary near the threshold of the injected current. Furthermore, an empirical formula is achieved to gauge the LPO-induced power penalty, which is proven to be valid in differential polarization shift-keying transmission by executing a bit error rate measurement. Our conclusions are applicable to non-orthogonal polarization cases and valuable to polarization-related communications, even orbital angular momentum multiplexing.

Quasi-single-photon sources are attracting a lot of interest in many fields at present; however, the knowledge is very poor about their performance. In this Letter, by using the standard Hanbury-Brown-Twiss measurement method, we investigate in detail the characteristics of the photons from an attenuated continuous single-mode red laser. For the first time to our knowledge we obtain the coincidence counting spectrum of a commercial single-photon source, which demonstrates that an appropriately attenuated continuous laser can be utilized as a quasi-single-photon source for general applications.