The generation of paired photons entangled in orbital angular momentum (OAM), provides a new degree of freedom that is increasingly being used as a source of quantum states. Elucidation of the OAM spectrum of OAM spectrum of the generated photons is of paramount importance, since quantum information applications require the ability to generate arbitrary entangled states with the appropriate OAM correlations. Here we discuss the OAM spectrum of the photon generated via SPDC in two complementary scenarios. On one hand, we should consider the whole geometry of the nonlinear process, taking into account azimuthal variations of the nonlinear coefficient or the phase matching conditions. On the other hand, all relevant experiments reported to date detect only a small section of the full down-conversion cone. In this scenario, the measured OAM correlations depend of the emission angle of the photons and the strength of the Poynting vector walk-off. We will present experiments in SPDC where this dependence is clearly revealed.
The generation of paired photons entangled in orbital angular momentum (OAM), provides a new degree of freedom that is increasingly being used as a source of quantum states. Elucidation of the OAM spectrum of OAM spectrum of the generated photons is of paramount importance, since quantum information applications require the ability to generate arbitrary entangled states with the appropriate OAM correlations. Here we discuss the OAM spectrum of the photon generated via SPDC in two complementary scenarios. On one hand, we should consider the whole geometry of the nonlinear process, taking into account azimuthal variations of the nonlinear coefficient or the phase matching conditions. On the other hand, all relevant experiments reported to date detect only a small section of the full down-conversion cone. In this scenario, the measured OAM correlations depend of the emission angle of the photons and the strength of the Poynting vector walk-off. We will present experiments in SPDC where this dependence is clearly revealed.
The OAM of light provides a new resource to explore quantum physics in a d-dimensional Hilbert space, beyond the two dimensional Hilbert space generated by the polarization state of the photons. The implementation of such a ddimensional quantum channel requires the generation of arbitrary engineered entangled states, thus controlling the OAM of the entangled photons is of paramount importance for many applications. Here we address the orbital angular momentum, i.e. the spatial shape, of photons generated in SPDC in non collinear geometries, when the interacting waves can exhibit Poynting vector walk off. The spatial shape depends on the interplay between the state ellipticity caused by the nonlinear geometry, and the Poynting vector walk off. The importance of both effects is dictated by the relationship between three characteristics lengths: the length of the nonlinear crystal, the walk off length and the non collinear length. The effects described here are relevant to current experiments, especially for the implementation of quantum information protocols based on spatially encoded information. Finally, the consideration of new geometries for SPDC, more specifically, highly non collinear configurations, will lead us to the discussion of the relationship between the OAM of the classical beam that pumps the nonlinear crystal, and the quantum OAM of the down converted photons. Regarding experimental measurements related to this issue, it is of great
importance to make a clear distinction between the measurement of locally paraxial light beams in a suitable transverse frame, and the description of the global down conversion process, which is not necessarily paraxial.
We show that the orbital angular momentum (OAM) correlations, and the amount of spatial entanglement, of paired photons generated in spontaneous parametric downconver- sion are strongly affected by the use of noncollinear configurations and by the presence of Poynting vector walk-off. We discuss how our results are related to the question of the conservation of OAM in a nonlinear optics process, and we derive selection rules that allow to determine the sought-after OAM correlations, especially for those configurations used in current quantum information experiments.
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.
The generation of paired photons entangled in the spatial degree of freedom, i.e., in orbital angular momentum, offers a convenient physical resource to investigate the nature of entanglement in a multidimensional Hilbert space with controllable dimensionality. The two main physical processes that generate pairs of photons which show correlations in orbital angular momentum are (a) spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC), and (b) Raman transitions induced in atomic ensembles. One question naturally arises: what kinds of correlations exist between the orbital angular momentum of the generated photons? The answer might be different if we consider the whole quantum state of the generated photons, i.e., all possible directions where the pairs of photons can be emitted, or if we consider only a small section of the full set of directions.
The bandwidth of any communication system, classical or quantum, is limited by the number of orthogonal states in which the information can be encoded. Quantum key distribution systems available commercially rely on the two-dimensional polarisation state of photons. Quantum computation has also been largely designed on the basis of qubits. However, a photon is endowed with other degrees of freedom, such as orbital angular momentum (OAM). OAM is an attractive basis to be used for quantum information because it is discrete and theoretically infinite-dimensional. This promises a higher information capacity per photon which can lead to more complex quantum computation protocols and more security and robustness for quantum cryptography. Entanglement of OAM naturally arises from spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC). However, any practical experiment utilising the innately high-dimensional entanglement of the orbital angular momentum (OAM) state space of photons is subject to the modal capacity of the detection system. Only a finite subset of this space is accessible experimentally. Given such a constraint, we show that the number of measured, entangled OAM modes in photon pairs generated by SPDC can be increased by tuning the phase-matching conditions in the SPDC process. We achieve this by tuning the orientation angle of the nonlinear crystal generating the entangled photons.
We implement an interferometric method to measure the orbital angular momentum (OAM) spectrum of photon pairs generated by spontaneous parametric down-conversion. In contrast with previous experiments, which were all limited by the modal capacity of the detection system, our method operates on the entire down-conversion cone and reveals the complete distribution of the generated OAM. In this geometry, new features can be studied. We show that the phase-matching conditions can be used as a tool to enhance the azimuthal Schmidt number and to flatten the spectral profile, allowing the efficient production of high-quality multidimensional entangled states.