Fiber-assisted detection with photon number resolution

We report the development of a photon-number-resolving detector based on a fiber-optical setup and a pair of standard avalanche photodiodes. The detector is capable of resolving individual photon numbers and operates on the well-known principle by which a single-mode input state is split into a large number (eight) of output modes. We reconstruct the photon statistics of weak coherent input light from experimental data and show that there is a high probability of inferring the input photon number from a measurement of the number of detection events on a single run. (C) 2003 Optical Society of America.