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Journal of Research of the National Institute of Standards and Technology

Tests of a two-photon technique for measuring polarization mode dispersion with subfemtosecond precision

Eric A. Dauler, Gregg S. Jaeger, Antoine Muller, Alan L. Migdall, Alexander V. Sergienko

Published Jan 1, 1999• 74 citations

Abstract

An investigation is made of a recently introduced quantum interferometric method capable of measuring polarization mode dispersion (PMD) on sub-femtosecond scales, without the usual interferometric stability problems associated with such small time scales.The technique makes use of the extreme temporal correlation of orthogonally polarized pairs of photons produced via type-II phase-matched spontaneous parametric down-conversion.When sent into a simple polarization interferometer these photon pairs produce a sharp interference feature seen in the coincidence rate.The PMD of a given sample is determined from the shift of that interference feature as the sample is inserted into the system.The stability and resolution of this technique is shown to be below 0.2 fs.We explore how this precision is improved by reducing the length of the down-conversion crystal and increasing the spectral band pass of the system.

DOI: 10.6028/jres.104.001

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The use of quantum correlations between photons to separate measure even- and odd-order components of polarization mode dispersion (PMD) and chromatic dispersion in discrete optical elements is investigated. Two types of apparatus are discussed which use coincidence counting of entangled photon pairs to allow sub-femtosecond resolution for measurement of both PMD and chromatic dispersion. Group delays can be measured with a resolution of order 0.1 fs, whereas attosecond resolution can be achieved for phase delays.

The use of quantum correlations between photons to measure polarization mode dispersion (PMD) and chromatic dispersion is investigated. Two types of apparatus are discussed which use coincidence counting of entangled photon pairs to allow sub-femtosecond resolution for measurement of both PMD and chromatic dispersion, as well as separation of even-order and odd-order chromatic effects in the PMD. Group delays can be measured with a resolution of order 0.1 fs, whereas attosecond resolution can be achieved for phase delays.

Correlated pairs of photons generated in nonlinear type-II spontaneous parametric downconversion (SPDC) can be used to develop a new approach for directly measuring the group-velocity difference between two orthogonally polarized wave packets propagating inside optical materials or fibers with femtosecond time resolution. This technique can be used to improve the accuracy of polarization-mode-dispersion measurement in single-mode and high-birefringence fibers, fiber sensors, and birefringent materials, including nonlinear crystals, waveguides, Pockels cells, and Faraday rotators, in the visible and IR spectra.

Hong-Ou-Mandel (HOM) interference is a cornerstone of many quantum information processing tasks. It relies on the destructive interference between Feynman paths and provides a measure of photon indistinguishability. For certain applications, e.g. in some quantum secure authentication schemes, the HOM readout needs to be performed remotely, i.e. far away from where the photons were originally created. It is therefore important to understand the effect of dispersion on the two-photon state and consequently its effect on the coincidence probability. Our work focuses on providing measurement data of the effect of polarization mode dispersion (PMD) on the HOM interference for photon pairs produced by spontaneous parametric down conversion (SPDC).

Polarization-entangled photon pairs can be efficiently prepared into pure Bell states with a high fidelity via type-II spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) of narrow-band pump light. However, the use of femtosecond pump pulses to generate multiphoton states with precise timing often requires spectral filtering to maintain a high quality of polarization entanglement. This typically reduces the efficiency of photon pair collection. We experimentally map the polarization correlations of photon pairs from such a source over a range of down-converted wavelengths with a high spectral resolution and find strong polarization correlations everywhere. A spectrally dependent imbalance between contributions from the two possible decay paths of SPDC is identified as the reason for a reduction in entanglement quality observed with femtosecond pump pulses. Our spectral measurements allow us to predict the polarization correlations for arbitrary filter profiles when the frequency degree of freedom of the photon pairs is ignored.

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