No Arabic abstract
We describe a cavity-enhanced spontaneous parametric down-conversion (CE-SPDC) source for narrowband photon pairs with filters such that over 97% of the correlated photons are in a single mode of 4.3(4) MHz bandwidth. Type-II phase matching, a tuneable-birefringence resonator, MHz-resolution pump tuning, and tuneable Fabry-Perot filters are used to achieve independent signal and idler tuning. We map the CE-SPDC spectrum using difference frequency generation to precisely locate the emission clusters, and demonstrate CE-SPDC driven atomic spectroscopy. The generated photon pairs efficiently interact with neutral rubidium, a well-developed system for quantum networking and quantum simulation. The techniques are readily extensible to other material systems.
We demonstrate a compact photon pair source based on a periodically poled lithium niobate nonlinear crystal in a cavity. The cavity parameters are chosen such that the emitted photon pair modes can be matched in the region of telecom ultra dense wavelength division multiplexing (U-DWDM) channel spacings. This approach provides efficient, low-loss, mode selection that is compatible with standard telecommunication networks. Photons with a coherence time of 8.6 ns (116 MHz) are produced and their purity is demonstrated. A source brightness of 134 pairs(s.mW.MHz)$^{-1}$ is reported. The high level of purity and compatibility with standard telecom networks is of great importance for complex quantum communication networks.
The practical prospect of quantum communication and information processing relies on sophisticated single photon pairs which feature controllable waveform, narrow spectrum, excellent purity, fiber compatibility and miniaturized design. For practical realizations, stable, miniaturized, low-cost devices are required. Sources with one or some of above performances have been demonstrated already, but it is quite challenging to have a source with all of the described characteristics simultaneously. Here we report on an integrated single-longitudinal-mode non-degenerate narrowband photon pair source, which exhibits all requirements needed for quantum applications. The device is composed of a periodically poled Ti-indiffused lithium niobate waveguide with high reflective dielectric mirror coatings deposited on the waveguide end-faces. Photon pairs with wavelengths around 890 nm and 1320 nm are generated via type II phase-matched parametric down-conversion. Clustering in this dispersive cavity restricts the whole conversion spectrum to one single-longitudinal-mode in a single cluster yielding a narrow bandwidth of only 60 MHz. The high conversion efficiency in the waveguide, together with the spectral clustering in the doubly resonant waveguide, leads to a high brightness of $3times10^4~$pairs/(s$cdot$mW$cdot$MHz). This source exhibits prominent single-longitudinal-mode purity and remarkable temporal shaping capability. Especially, due to temporal broadening, we can observe that the coherence time of the two-photon component of PDC state is actually longer than the one of the single photon states. The miniaturized monolithic design makes this source have various fiber communication applications.
Frequency non-degenerate entangled photon pairs have been employed in quantum communication, imaging, and sensing. To characterize quantum entangled state with long-wavelength (infrared, IR or even terahertz, THz) photon, one needs to either develop the single-photon detectors at the corresponding wavelengths or use novel tomography technique, which does not rely on single-photon detections, such as stimulated emission tomography (SET). We use standard quantum state tomography and SET to measure the density matrix of entangled photon pairs, with one photon at 1550 nm and the other one at 810 nm, and obtain highly consistent results, showing the reliability of SET. Our work paves the way for efficient measurement of entangled photons with highly dissimilar frequencies, even to the frequencies where single-photon detections are not available.
Photon correlations, as measured by Glaubers $n$-th order coherence functions $g^{(n)}$, are highly sought to be minimized and/or maximized. In systems that are coherently driven, so-called blockades can give rise to strong correlations according to two scenarios based on level-repulsion (conventional blockade) or interferences (unconventional blockade). Here we show how these two approaches relate to the admixing of a coherent state with a quantum state such as a squeezed state for the simplest and most recurrent case. The emission from a variety of systems, such as resonance fluorescence, the Jaynes-Cummings model or microcavity polaritons, as a few examples of a large family of quantum optical sources, are shown to be particular cases of such admixtures, that can further be doctored-up externally by adding an amplitude- and phase-controlled coherent field with the effect of tuning the photon statistics from exactly zero to infinity. We show how such an understanding also allows to classify photon statistics throughout platforms according to conventional and unconventional features, with the effect of optimizing the correlations and with possible spectroscopic applications. In particular, we show how configurations that can realize simultaneously conventional and unconventional antibunching bring the best of both worlds: huge antibunching (unconventional) with large populations and being robust to dephasing (conventional).
We demonstrate a hybrid approach to the generation of photon pairs of a short wavelength with high brightness, by combining parametric down-conversion (SPDC) and up-conversion techniques. Photon pairs were generated at the wavelength of 1550 nm via SPDC, and converted to 516.7 nm through up-conversion with the pump at 775 nm. The quantum sum-frequency interference of the up-converted photon pairs exhibited a fringe period of 258.3 nm, which was 6 times shorter than the original wavelength, demonstrating that the energy-time correlation of the photon pairs was preserved. The technique simultaneously provides short fringe period beyond the classical limit and high brightness of the photon pairs.