A fourth-order interference technique has been used to measure the time intervals between two photons, and by implication the length of the photon wave packet, produced in the process of parametric down-conversion. The width of the time-interval distribution, which is largely determined by an interference filter, is found to be about 100 fs, with an accuracy that could, in principle, be less than 1 fs.

• Received 10 July 1987

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.59.2044