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Optics Express

15 μm orthogonally polarized dual-output heralded single photon source based on optical fibers with birefringence

Tianyi Ma, Qiang Zhou, Wei Zhang, Yidong Huang, Xiaowei Cui, Mingquan Lu, Bingkun Zhou

Published Jun 20, 2013• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

In this paper, a heralded single photon source (HSPS) at 1.5 μm with two independent orthogonally polarized outputs is realized based on a piece of polarization maintaining dispersion shifted fiber (PM-DSF). The HSPS is based on two scalar spontaneous four wave mixing (SFWM) processes along the two fiber polarization axes, while two vector SFWM processes are suppressed due to the high birefringence in the PM-DSF. The preparation efficiencies of the two independent outputs are about 73.7% and 69.1%, respectively, under a second-order correlation function g(2)(0) of 0.059. The indistinguishability between the two independent heralded single photons is demonstrated by Hong-Ou-Mandel (HOM) interference with a visibility of 78.9%, showing its great potential in quantum optics experiments and applications of quantum information.

DOI
10.1364/oe.21.015364

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arXiv:1204.2107•Apr 10, 2012•0 citations
In this paper, a heralded single photon source (HSPS) at 1.5 μm with two independent orthogonally polarized outputs is realized based on a piece of polarization maintaining dispersion shifted fiber (PM-DSF). The HSPS is based on two scalar spontaneous four wave mixing (SFWM) processes along the two fiber polarization axes, while two vector SFWM processes are suppressed due to the high birefringence in the PM-DSF. The preparation efficiencies of the two independent outputs are about 73.7% and 69.1%, respectively, under a second-order correlation function g(2)(0) of 0.059. The indistinguishability between the two independent heralded single photons is demonstrated by Hong-Ou-Mandel (HOM) interference with a visibility of 78.9%, showing its great potential in quantum optics experiments and applications of quantum information.
Single photon sources (SPSs) play important roles in quantum communication and quantum information processing. Spontaneous four wave mixing (SFWM) in optical fibers provides a promising way to realize practical heralded single photon sources (HSPSs), since it is compatible with current techniques of optical communications. In this paper, two independent HSPSs at 1.5μm band are realized in one polarization maintaining dispersion shifted fiber (PM-DSF) utilizing its large birefringence. When pulsed pump light passes through an optical fiber, two kinds of SFWM will take place simultaneously. One is scalar processes, in which two annihilated pump photons and generated photon pair are all polarized along the same fiber polarization axis. The other is vector processes, in which two annihilated pump photons are polarized along different fiber polarization axes, either for the two photons of the generated pair. In the PM-DSF, the large birefringence generates obvious walk-off effect on the two pump polarization components, which leads to an effective suppression of the vector processes. Hence, by proper pump polarization, correlated photon pairs (CPPs) with different polarization directions can be generated independently by the two scalar processes, which can be used to realize two independent HSPSs. The indistinguishability of the heralded photons generated by the two independent sources is demonstrated by an experiment of Hong-Ou-Mandel (HOM) interference. Using a fiber coupler as the beam splitter, a visibility of HOM dip of 76% is achieved, showing their potential on quantum information.
Single photons are essential resource for quantum communication and quantum information processing, which can carry quantum information to distant locations. A promising scheme for single photon generation is the heralded single photon source (HSPS), which is based on the generation of correlated photon pairs (CPPs). Utilizing the quantum correlation property of the CPPs, one photon of the CPP is detected providing an electrical signal to herald the other photon as a single photon output. Recently, 1.5 μm CPP generation through spontaneously four wave-mixing (SFWM) in fiber has focused much attention, which provides a practical way to realize 1.5 μm fiber-based HSPS. The quality of a HSPS is described by the preparation efficiency and g(2)(0). In the fiber-based HSPS, the preparation efficiency is determined by the loss of the filtering and splitting system and the noise photons generated by spontaneously Raman scattering (SpRS). Considering the impact of the SpRS can be reduced by cooling the fiber and optimizing the frequency detuning of filtering and splitting system, the loss of the filtering and splitting system may give a theoretical up-limit of the preparation efficiency. In this paper, using commercial fiber components, we realize a high quality HSPS based on cooled fiber with a preparation efficiency of 80% under a g(2)(0) of0.06, showing its great potential in the application of quantum information technology.
In this Letter, a linear scheme to generate polarization entanglement at 1.5 μm based on commercial polarization maintained dispersion shifted fiber (PM-DSF) is proposed. The birefringent walk-off effect of the pulsed pump light in the PM-DSF provides an effective way to suppress the vector scattering processes of spontaneous four-wave mixing. A 90 deg offset of fiber polarization axes is introduced at the midpoint of the fiber to realize the quantum superposition of the two correlated photon states generated by the two scalar processes on different fiber polarization axes, leading to polarization entanglement generation. Experiments of the indistinguishable property on single-side and two-photon interference in two nonorthogonal polarization bases are demonstrated. A two-photon interference fringe visibility of 89±3% is achieved without subtracting the background counts, demonstrating its great potential in developing highly a efficient and stable fiber based polarization-entangled quantum light source at the optical communication band.
Spontaneous four-wave mixing (SFWM) in optical fibers is an important way to generate correlated/entangled photon pairs. When the pulsed pump light passes through the optical fiber, two kinds of SFWM will take place simultaneously. One is scalar scattering processes, in which two annihilated pump photons and generated photon pair are all polarized along the same fiber polarization axis. The other is vector scattering processes, in which two annihilated pump photons are polarized along different fiber polarization axes, either to the two photons of the generated pair. If the fiber has large group birefringence, the intensity of vector scattering processes will be suppressed at the phase matching frequencies of the scalar scattering processes. On the other hand, the walk-off effect of the pump pulse components polarized along the two fiber polarization axes also suppresses the vector scattering processes. Hence, by proper pump polarization and signal/idle frequency selection, photon pairs can be generated only by the two independent scalar scattering processes in optical fibers with birefringence, which provide a simple way to realize polarization entangled photon pair generation. In this paper, related experiments based on the high nonlinearity microstructure fiber (HN-MSF) with group birefringence and polarization maintained dispersion shifted fiber (PM-DSF) are introduced, showing their potential on developing practical quantum light sources.
A high-quality heralded single-photon source (HSPS) at 1.5 μm is experimentally demonstrated based on spontaneous four wave-mixing in a piece of dispersion-shifted fiber cooled by liquid nitrogen. To improve the up-limit of the preparation efficiency of the HSPS, commercial dense wavelength-division multiplexing components are used to reduce the loss of the filtering and splitting system between the fiber and the single-photon detectors. As a result, a preparation efficiency of 80% is realized under a g (2) (0) of 0.06 in our HSPS experimental system, which is the best performance for the fiber-based HSPS at 1.5 μm reported so far.
In this Letter, a linear scheme to generate polarization entanglement at 1.5 um based on commercial polarization maintained dispersion shifted fiber (PM-DSF) is proposed. The birefringent walk-off effect of the pulsed pump light in the PM-DSF provides an effective way to suppress the vector scattering processes of spontaneous four wave mixing. A 90 degree offset of fiber polarization axes is introduced at the midpoint of the fiber to realize the quantum superposition of the two correlated photon states generated by the two scalar processes on different fiber polarization axes, leading to polarization entanglement generation. Experiments of the indistinguishable property on single side and two-photon interference in two non-orthogonal polarization bases are demonstrated. A two photon interference fringe visibility of 89\pm3% is achieved without subtracting the background counts, demonstrating its great potential in developing highly efficient and stable fiber based polarization-entangled quantum light source at optical communication band.