We calculate the biphoton state generated by spontaneous parametric down-conversion in a thin crystal and under collinear phase matching conditions using a pump consisting of any superposition of Laguerre–Gauss modes. The result has no restrictions on the angular or radial momenta or, in particular, on the width of the pump, signal and idler modes. We demonstrate the strong effect of the ratio of the pump width to the signal/idler widths on the composition of the down-converted entangled fields. The knowledge of this ratio is shown to be essential for calculating the maximally entangled states that can be produced using pumps with a complex spatial profile.
We calculate the biphoton state generated by spontaneous parametric down-conversion in a thin crystal and under collinear phase matching conditions using a pump consisting of any superposition of Laguerre–Gauss modes. The result has no restrictions on the angular or radial momenta or, in particular, on the width of the pump, signal and idler modes. We demonstrate the strong effect of the ratio of the pump width to the signal/idler widths on the composition of the down-converted entangled fields. The knowledge of this ratio is shown to be essential for calculating the maximally entangled states that can be produced using pumps with a complex spatial profile.
Spontaneous parametric down-conversion has been shown to be a reliable source of entangled photons. Among the wide range of properties shown to be entangled, it is the orbital angular momentum that is the focus of our study. We investigate, in particular, the bi-photon state generated using a Gaussian pump beam. We derive an expression for the simultaneous correlations in the orbital angular momentum, $\ensuremath{\ell}$, and radial momentum, p, of the down-converted Laguerre-Gaussian beams. Our result allows us, for example, to calculate the spiral bandwidth with no restriction on the geometry of the beams: $\ensuremath{\ell}$, p, and the beam widths are all free parameters. Moreover, we show that, with the usual paraxial and collinear approximations, a fully analytic expression for the correlations can be derived.
High-dimensional spatial entanglement generated via spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) provides a powerful resource for quantum information processing, yet its mode structure becomes increasingly complex when the pump occupies a higher-order Laguerre--Gaussian (LG) mode. Here, we develop an algebraic framework for characterizing biphoton spatial-mode entanglement by factorizing LG-pumped SPDC into a spatial-mode beam-splitter transformation followed by spatial two-mode squeezing. By choosing the biphoton LG basis radius as the geometric mean of the pump-beam radius and the crystal-induced correlation width, we obtain a natural modal basis in which the two operations can be treated separately. When the pump-beam radius matches the correlation width, spatial squeezing vanishes, and the two circular-mode components of the pump are independently conserved across the signal and idler photons, leading to conservation of both orbital angular momentum and the total spatial mode number. We further derive an analytical expression for the Schmidt number for arbitrary LG pump modes and squeezing strengths, revealing how the radial and azimuthal pump indices govern the dimensionality of the spatial entanglement. This algebraic characterization provides a unified description of the mode structure, conservation laws, and entanglement dimensionality of higher-order-LG-pumped SPDC.
We elucidate the paraxial orbital angular momentum of entangled photon pairs generated by spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) in different non-collinear geometries. To date, most investigations addressed SPDC in nearly collinear phase-matching geometries, where the pump, the signal and idler photons propagate coaxially almost along the same direction. However, non-collinear geometries introduce a variety of new features. The OAM of the entangled photons strongly depend on the propagation direction of the photons. Here we show that locally paraxial measurements of the OAM conducted with entangled photons generated in non collinear geometries, they do not comply with the known selection rules for the spiral index of the pump, signal and idler mode functions (Mair et al., Nature 412, 313 (2001)). In particular, we find the orbital angular momentum of entangled pairs generated in purely transverse-emitting configurations, where the entangled photons counter-propagate perpendicularly to the direction of propagation of the pump beam. In transverse emitting configurations, the spatial shape of the down converted in one transverse dimensions strongly depends on the corresponding spatial shape of the input pump beam, while in the other transverse dimension, the shape is tailored by the longitudinal phase matching. The spatial walk-off of all interacting waves in the parametric process also determines the OAM content of the down-converted photons, and here its influence is also revealed.
Spatially engineered photons from spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) are a valuable tool for studying and applying photonic entanglement. An advantage of SPDC is that simple expressions for the two-photon state can be obtained using justified approximations. In particular, the thin-crystal approximation has often been invoked in the engineering of high-dimensional entangled states. Knowledge of the conditions under which the thin-crystal approximation remains valid is essential for the realization of experimental setups. We provide a quantitative guideline on the validity of the thin-crystal approximation in calculating the two-photon spatial state. In particular, we show that the applicability of this regime is related to the focusing parameter ${\overline{w}}_{p}={w}_{p}/\sqrt{{\ensuremath{\lambda}}_{p}\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}L}$, where wp and ${\ensuremath{\lambda}}_{p}$ are the beam waist and wavelength of the pump beam, respectively, and L is the length of the nonlinear crystal. Additionally, the validity of the thin-crystal regime is investigated concerning the size of a subspace in the Laguerre Gaussian basis, into which the two-photon state can be projected in a given experiment.
Abstract In this work, we investigate the orbital angular momentum (OAM) spectrum of photons generated via spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) and study how shaping the transverse profile of the pump beam influences the resulting spectrum. Using a perfect optical vortex (POV) mode as the pump, we show that the OAM spectrum narrows significantly, leading to purer OAM states. We further examine the entanglement between the down-converted photons in the OAM basis, finding that Laguerre–Gaussian (LG) pumped photons exhibit increased higher-dimensional entanglement at the expense of mode purity.
A recent work [H. H. Arnaut and G. A. Barbosa, Phys. Rev. Lett. 85, 286 (2000)] has shown eigenstates describing pairs of photons from spontaneous parametric down-conversion, which are eigenstates of orbital, intrinsic, and total momentum. Experimental demonstration of transfer of angular momentum to parametric down-converted photons has also been achieved [A. Mair, A. Vaziri, G. Weihs, and A. Zeilinger, Nature 412, 313 (2001)]. This work shows conditions for phase matching and examples are given for a Laguerre-mode pump beam. Polar and azimuthal angles are connected by phase matching giving a peculiar divergence pattern for the down-converted light. Full entanglement of polarization and angular-momentum states of photons is discussed.