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arXiv:2107.06244 · Physical Review Letters

Measuring the Joint Spectral Mode of Photon Pairs Using Intensity Interferometry

G. S. Thekkadath, B. A. Bell, Raj B. Patel, M. S. Kim, Ian A. Walmsley

Published Jan 10, 2022• 26 citations
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Abstract

The ability to manipulate and measure the time-frequency structure of quantum light is useful for information processing and metrology. Measuring this structure is also important when developing quantum light sources with high modal purity that can interfere with other independent sources. Here, we present and experimentally demonstrate a scheme based on intensity interferometry to measure the joint spectral mode of photon pairs produced by spontaneous parametric down-conversion. We observe correlations in the spectral phase of the photons due to chirp in the pump. We show that our scheme can be combined with stimulated emission tomography to quickly measure their mode using bright classical light. Our scheme does not require phase stability, nonlinearities, or spectral shaping and thus is an experimentally simple way of measuring the modal structure of quantum light.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.128.023601

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The ability to manipulate and measure the time-frequency structure of quantum light is useful for information processing and metrology. Measuring this structure is also important when developing quantum light sources with high modal purity that can interfere with other independent sources. Here, we present and experimentally demonstrate a scheme based on intensity interferometry to measure the joint spectral mode of photon pairs produced by spontaneous parametric down-conversion. We observe correlations in the spectral phase of the photons due to chirp in the pump. We show that our scheme can be combined with stimulated emission tomography to quickly measure their mode using bright classical light. Our scheme does not require phase stability, nonlinearities, or spectral shaping and thus is an experimentally simple way of measuring the modal structure of quantum light.
The development of new quantum light sources requires robust and convenient methods of characterizing their joint spectral properties. Measuring the joint spectral intensity between a photon pair ignores any correlations in spectral phase which may be responsible for degrading the quality of quantum interference. A fully phase-sensitive characterization tends to require significantly more experimental complexity. Here, we investigate the sensitivity of the frequency-resolved double-pair emission to spectral phase correlations, in particular to the presence of a simple form of correlated phase which can be generated by a chirped pump laser pulse. We observe interference fringes in the four photon coincidences which depend on the frequencies of all four photons, with a period which depends on the strength of their correlation. We also show that phase correlations in the JSA induce spectral intensity correlations between two signal photons, even when the corresponding idler photons are not detected, and link this correlation pattern to the purity of a single signal photon. These effects will be useful in assessing new photon-pair sources for quantum technologies, especially since we require little additional complexity compared to a joint spectral intensity measurement - essentially just the ability to detect at least two photons in each output port.
In spontaneous parametric down-conversion, the spectral correlations between the signal and the idler are expressed by the joint spectral amplitude (JSA) function. However, in the standard coincidence measurements, the phase information of the JSA is lost, and only the square of the absolute value of the JSA is recorded, thus preventing full characterization of the biphoton state. Here, we present an experimental technique to investigate the interference of biphoton joint spectral amplitudes, unlocking new avenues in quantum photonics research. Our method explores phase-dependent phenomena within entangled biphoton spectra. This is achieved by simultaneously pumping two structured nonlinear photonic crystals and observing their interference, which reveals previously inaccessible effects with direct intensity measurements. We demonstrate the versatility of our technique by analyzing two types of joint spectra: one exhibiting a two-lobe shape and the other a three-lobe shape. Additionally, we reconstruct the joint spectral amplitudes for both scenarios and observe good agreement with theoretical predictions. These results pave the way for developing advanced quantum communication and information processing technologies using biphoton spectra.
Determining the modal structure of quantum light is important for photonic information processing, sensing, and imaging. A full modal characterization requires determining both the amplitude and phase of light’s spatial and spectral distributions, as well as its polarization. We propose using Hanbury Brown and Twiss “intensity interferometry” with a classical reference field to perform this full characterization without the need for phase stability or nonlinearities. The technique can be applied to any quantum signal, such as single photons and entangled photon pairs.
Tailoring spectral properties of photon pairs is of great importance for optical quantum information and measurement applications. High-resolution spectral measurement is a key technique for engineering spectral properties of photons, making them ideal for various quantum applications. Here we demonstrate spectral measurements and optimization of frequency-entangled photon pairs produced via spontaneous parametric downconversion (SPDC), utilizing frequency-resolved sum-frequency generation (SFG), the reverse process of SPDC. A joint phase-matching spectrum of a nonlinear crystal around 1580 nm is captured with a 40 pm resolution and a > 40 dB signal-to-noise ratio, which is significantly improved compared to traditional frequency-resolved coincidence measurements. Moreover, our scheme is applicable to collinear degenerate sources whose characterization is difficult with previously demonstrated stimulated difference frequency generation (DFG). We also illustrate that the observed phase-matching function is useful for finding an optimal pump spectrum to maximize the spectral indistinguishability of SPDC photons. We expect that our precise spectral characterization technique will be useful tool for characterizing and tailoring SPDC sources for a wide range of optical quantum applications.
Photonic quantum states generated from atomic systems play prominent roles in long-distance quantum networks and scalable quantum communication, because entangled photon pairs from atomic ensembles possess a universal identity and narrow spectral bandwidth for quantum repeaters. In this study, we propose and demonstrate a novel, to the best of our knowledge, method for the joint spectral intensity measurement of narrowband continuous wave (CW)-mode photon pairs from a warm atomic ensemble using stimulated emission and beat interferometry for the first time. Our approach offers the advantage of sub-megahertz resolution, absolute optical frequency measurements with megahertz-level accuracy, fast collection time, and high signal-to-noise ratio; thus, our method can find important applications in the characterization of narrowband photon pairs generated from sources including atoms and artificially structured material.
The ability to determine the joint spectral properties of photon pairs produced by the processes of spontaneous parametric downconversion (SPDC) and spontaneous four-wave mixing (SFWM) is crucial for guaranteeing the usability of heralded single photons and polarization-entangled pairs for multi-photon protocols. In this paper, we compare six different techniques that yield either a characterization of the joint spectral intensity or of the closely related purity of heralded single photons. These six techniques include: (i) scanning monochromator measurements, (ii) a variant of Fourier transform spectroscopy designed to extract the desired information exploiting a resource-optimized technique, (iii) dispersive fibre spectroscopy, (iv) stimulated-emission-based measurement, (v) measurement of the second-order correlation function g(2) for one of the two photons, and (vi) two-source Hong–Ou–Mandel interferometry. We discuss the relative performance of these techniques for the specific cases of a SPDC source designed to be factorable and SFWM sources of varying purity, and compare the techniques’ relative advantages and disadvantages.