By utilizing a fiber-based indistinguishable photon-pair source in the $1.55\mu \mathrm{m}$ telecommunications band [J. Chen et al., Opt. Lett. 31, 2798 (2006)], we present the first, to the best of our knowledge, deterministic quantum splitter based on the principle of time-reversed Hong-Ou-Mandel quantum interference. The deterministically separated identical photons’ indistinguishability is then verified by using a conventional Hong-Ou-Mandel quantum interference, which exhibits a near-unity dip visibility of $94\pm 1\%$, making this quantum splitter useful for various quantum information processing applications.

• Received 19 February 2007

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.76.031804