Implementation of single-photon creation and annihilation operators: experimental issues in their application to thermal states of light

We have recently realized experimental schemes to implement the action of single-photon creation and annihilation operators onto completely classical and fully incoherent thermal light states (Parigi et al 2007 Science 317 1890). By applying alternated sequences of the creation and annihilation operators we observed that the resulting states depend on the order in which the two quantum operators are applied, thus obtaining the most direct experimental test of non-commutativity. Here we provide an extensive and detailed discussion of the main experimental issues related to the realization of these schemes.