arXiv:2005.03741 · Physical Review A
Frequency-correlation requirements on the biphoton wave function in an induced-coherence experiment between separate sources
Arturo Rojas-Santana, Gerard J. Machado, Dorilian Lopez-Mago, Juan P. Torres
Abstract
There is renewed interest in using the coherence between beams generated in separate down-converter sources for new applications in imaging, spectroscopy, microscopy, and optical coherence tomography (OCT). These schemes make use of continuous-wave (cw) pumping in the low parametric gain regime, which produces frequency correlations and frequency entanglement between signal-idler pairs generated in each single source. But can induced coherence still be observed if there is no frequency correlation, so the biphoton wave function is factorable? We will show that this is the case and might be an advantage for OCT applications. High axial resolution requires a large bandwidth. For cw pumping, this requires the use of short nonlinear crystals. This is detrimental since short crystals generate small photon fluxes. We show that the use of ultrashort pump pulses allows one to improve the axial resolution even for a long crystal that produces higher photon fluxes.