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arXiv:0810.1333 · Physical Review A

Ultrabroadband photon pair preparation by spontaneous four-wave mixing in a dispersion-engineered optical fiber

Karina Garay-Palmett, Alfred B. U’Ren, R. Rangel-Rojo, Rodger Evans, Santiago Camacho-López

Published Oct 30, 2008• 24 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We present a study of the spectral properties of photon pairs generated through the process of spontaneous four-wave mixing (SFWM) in single mode fiber. Our analysis assumes narrowband pumps, which are allowed to be frequency degenerate or nondegenerate. Based on this analysis, we derive conditions on the pump frequencies and on the fiber dispersion parameters which guarantee the generation of ultrabroadband photon pairs. Such photon pairs are characterized by (i) a very large degree of entanglement, and (ii) a very high degree of temporal synchronization between the signal and idler photons. Through a numerical exercise, we find that the use of photonic crystal fiber (PCF) facilitates the fulfilment of the conditions for ultrabroadband photon pair generation; in particular, the spectral region in which emission occurs can be adjusted to particular needs through an appropriate choice of the PCF parameters. In addition, we present a quantum interference effect, resulting from indistinguishable pathways to the same outcome, which can occur when pumping a SFWM source with multiple spectral lines.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.78.043827

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We present a study of the spectral properties of photon pairs generated through the process of spontaneous four-wave mixing (SFWM) in single mode fiber. Our analysis assumes narrowband pumps, which are allowed to be frequency degenerate or nondegenerate. Based on this analysis, we derive conditions on the pump frequencies and on the fiber dispersion parameters which guarantee the generation of ultrabroadband photon pairs. Such photon pairs are characterized by (i) a very large degree of entanglement, and (ii) a very high degree of temporal synchronization between the signal and idler photons. Through a numerical exercise, we find that the use of photonic crystal fiber (PCF) facilitates the fulfilment of the conditions for ultrabroadband photon pair generation; in particular, the spectral region in which emission occurs can be adjusted to particular needs through an appropriate choice of the PCF parameters. In addition, we present a quantum interference effect, resulting from indistinguishable pathways to the same outcome, which can occur when pumping a SFWM source with multiple spectral lines.
The photonic crystal fiber (PCF) is one of the excellent media for generating photon pairs via spontaneous four-wave mixing. Here we study how the inhomogeneity of PCFs affect the spectral properties of photon pairs from both the theoretical and experimental aspects. The theoretical model shows that the photon pairs born in different places of the inhomogeneous PCF are coherently superposed, and a modulation in the broadened spectrum of phase-matching function will appear, which prevents the realization of spectral factorable photon pairs. In particular, the inhomogeneity induced modulation can be examined by measuring the spectrum of the individual signal or idler field when the asymmetric group-velocity matching condition is approximately fulfilled. Our experiments are performed by tailoring the spectrum of pulsed pump to satisfy the specified phase-matching condition. The observed spectra of individual signal photons, which are produced from different segments of the 1.9 m inhomogeneous PCF, agree with the theoretical predictions. The investigations are not only useful for fiber-based quantum state engineering, but also provide a dependable method to test the homogeneity of PCF.
We study the generation of photon pairs by spontaneous four-wave mixing (SFWM) in photonic crystal optical fibers. We show that it is possible to engineer two-photon states with specific spectral entanglement properties suitable for quantum information processing applica- tions. In this work, we concentrate on inner-loop phasematching, for which signal and idler photons can be generated at a small spectral separation from the pump, while sufficiently removed from the pump to ensure the absence of background photons produced by spontaneous Raman scattering. We present specific source designs which permit both symmetric and asymmetric factorable states, which allow herald- ing of pure-state, single-photon wavepackets without the need for spectral post-filtering. Additionally, we present numerical results for the conversion efficiency, where we compare sources based on inner- and outer-loop phasematching.
We present a theoretical study of the generation of photon pairs by spontaneous four‐wave mixing (SFWM) in photonic crystal optical fiber. We show that it is possible to engineer two‐photon states with specific spectral entanglement properties suitable for quantum information processing applications. In this work, we concentrate on states exhibiting no spectral correlations in the two‐photon component of the state, which allow heralding of pure‐state, single‐photon wavepackets without the need for spectral post filtering. We present specific source designs which permit both symmetric and asymmetric factorable states, with signal and idler photons in the visible, and sufficiently removed from the pump to ensure suppression of background photons produced by spontaneous Raman scattering.
Based on the dispersion property of a given photonic crystal fiber (PCF), we study how to directly generate photon pairs with minimized frequency correlation via pulse-pumped spontaneous four-wave mixing. After illustrating why the intensity correlation function g (2) of individual signal (idler) photons can be used to reliably characterize the frequency correlation of photon pairs, we numerically investigate the dependence of g (2) under various kinds of experimental conditions. The results show that to minimize the frequency correlation, the experimental parameters should be properly optimized by balancing the influences of the high-order dispersion and the intrinsic sinc oscillation of phase matching function, apart from the satisfaction of the specified phase matching condition and the usage of transform-limited pump pulses. To verify the calculated results, we conduct two series of experiments by regulating the pump to respectively satisfy the asymmetric and symmetric group velocity matching conditions in our 0.6 m-long PCF. In both cases, the measured values of g (2) are less than the calculated results due to the inhomogeneity of the PCF; however, the experimental results qualitatively agree with the numerical simulations. Our investigation is very useful in fiber-based quantum state engineering.
The purpose of this tutorial paper is to present a broad overview of photon-pair generation through the spontaneous four wave mixing (SFWM) process in optical fibers. Progress in optical fiber technology means that today we have at our disposal a wide variety of types of fiber, which, together with the fact that SFWM uses two pump fields, implies a truly remarkable versatility in the resulting possible photon-pair properties. We discuss how the interplay of frequency, transverse mode, and polarization degrees of freedom—the first linked to the latter two through fiber dispersion—leads to interesting entanglement properties both in individual degrees of freedom and also permitting hybrid and hyper entanglement in combinations of degrees of freedom. This tutorial covers methods for photon-pair factorability, frequency tunability, and SFWM bandwidth control, the effect of frequency non-degenerate and counterpropagating pumps, as well as methods for characterizing photon pairs generated in optical fibers.
We study theoretically the generation of photon pairs by spontaneous four-wave mixing (SFWM) in photonic crystal optical fiber. We show that it is possible to engineer two-photon states with specific spectral correlation ("entanglement") properties suitable for quantum information processing applications. We focus on the case exhibiting no spectral correlations in the two-photon component of the state, which we call factorability, and which allows heralding of single-photon pure-state wave packets without the need for spectral post filtering. We show that spontaneous four wave mixing exhibits a remarkable flexibility, permitting a wider class of two-photon states, including ultra-broadband, highly-anticorrelated states.