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Optics Express

Does pump beam intensity affect the efficiency of spontaneous parametric down conversion?

Özgün Süzer, Theodore G. Goodson III

Published Nov 24, 2008• 25 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We show that, with proper modification of the pump field description from plane-wave to spherical-like, which serves to incorporate geometric effects that were discarded in the plane-wave model, the efficiency of the spontaneous parametric down conversion process exhibits dependence on pump intensity, contrary to previous theoretical predictions. Experimental investigations of this behavior are carried out under focused pumping conditions, where pump divergence is kept constant, and pairs of photons are collected behind an aperture that is large compared to the overall down-conversion profile. The resulting photon yield is found to exhibit a strong dependence on pump intensity, and an enhancement of the down-conversion efficiency is observed. The modified pump field description is also modeled numerically and calculations are presented, which are found to display good accordance with experimental observations. The enhanced yield of spontaneous parametrically down-converted photons will prove beneficial for many practical applications of entangled photon pairs where a high flux is desired.

DOI
10.1364/oe.16.020166

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We show that, with proper modification of the pump field description from plane-wave to spherical-like, which serves to incorporate geometric effects that were discarded in the plane-wave model, the efficiency of the spontaneous parametric down conversion process exhibits dependence on pump intensity, contrary to previous theoretical predictions. Experimental investigations of this behavior are carried out under focused pumping conditions, where pump divergence is kept constant, and pairs of photons are collected behind an aperture that is large compared to the overall down-conversion profile. The resulting photon yield is found to exhibit a strong dependence on pump intensity, and an enhancement of the down-conversion efficiency is observed. The modified pump field description is also modeled numerically and calculations are presented, which are found to display good accordance with experimental observations. The enhanced yield of spontaneous parametrically down-converted photons will prove beneficial for many practical applications of entangled photon pairs where a high flux is desired.
Photons produced in the process of spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) are typically entangled in multiple degrees of freedom. Although polarization is often the parameter of interest, the presence of spectral or spatial entanglement can complicate experiments, either by reducing the visibility of certain interference effects or by reducing collection efficiency. Several recent works have shown that the collection efficiency can be improved by focusing the pump beam. This approach has the added benefit of increasing the bandwidths of the emitted photons. We show that, in the case of type II SPDC, a focused pump can result in different spatial profiles for the signal and idler. If the crystal is configured for emission of polarization-entangled photon pairs, this effect will reduce the fidelity of that entanglement. Moreover, this spatial asymmetry leads to different spectral profiles for the two photons, even when the pump is monochromatic. The spectral and spatial asymmetries can be attributed to the difference in the angular dispersion (walk-off) of the two polarizations, along with a strong correlation between wavelength and emission direction. We also examine the link between spatial entanglement and single-mode coupling efficiency. We find that efficiency is maximized when spatial entanglement can be eliminated. For the case in which walk-off does not play a role, this can be accomplished by properly focusing the pump.
Spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) is a widely used process to prepare entangled photon pairs. In SPDC, a second-order nonlinear crystal is pumped by a coherent laser beam to generate photon pairs. The photon pairs are usually detected by single-mode fibers (SMF), where only photons in a Gaussian mode can be collected. The collection modes possess typical Gaussian parameters, namely a beam waist and a focal plane position. The collection efficiency of photons highly depends on the choice of both parameters. The exact focal plane position of the pump beam relative to those of the detection modes is difficult to determine in a real experiment. Usually, theoretical and experimental studies assume that the focal plane positions of the pump and the generated beams are positioned in the center of the crystal. The displacement of beam focal planes can lead to deviations from expected results and the coupling efficiency into SMF can increase or decrease. In this work, we consider variable positions of focal planes and investigate how shifts of these focal planes influence the spatial and temporal properties of photon pairs. We present SPDC arrangements, in which the knowledge of the exact position of the focal planes is essential, as well as scenarios, where focal plane displacements do not contribute significantly to experimental outcomes. These findings are of particular interest for achieving higher efficiency in SPDC experiments.
Photon modes have an important role in characterizing the quantum sources of light. Proper coupling of various photon modes obtained in spontaneous parametric down conversion (SPDC) process in optical fibers is essential to generate an effective source of entangled photons. The two main pre-detection factors affecting the biphoton mode coupling in SPDC are the pump beam focusing parameter and the crystal thickness. We present the numerical and experimental results on the effect of pump focusing on conditional down-converted photon modes for a Type-I BBO crystal. We experimentally verify that biphoton coupling efficiency decreases asymptotically with pump beam focusing parameter. We attribute this behaviour to (a) the asymmetry in the spatial distribution of down-converted photons with the pump beam focusing parameter and (b) the ellipticity of biphoton modes introduced due to the focusing of the pump beam. We also show experimentally the ellipticity as well as quantify the asymmetry with the pump focusing parameter. These results may be useful in selecting optimum conditions in the down-conversion process for generating efficient sources of entangled photons for quantum information applications.
We investigate the methods to obtain maximum correlated photon pairs generated in Type I spontaneous parametric down conversion (SPDC) with focused pump beam. We study the effect of pump focusing on the photon collection efficiency of signal and idler modes. The correlated photon pair collection efficiency decreases asymptotically with input pump beam focusing parameter [1]. The results obtained here are expected to be useful in designing appropriate optical fibers for generating efficient entangled photon sources for quantum information applications.
Abstract Spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) is a widely used process to prepare entangled photon pairs. In SPDC, a second-order nonlinear crystal is pumped by a coherent laser beam to generate photon pairs. The photon pairs are usually detected by single-mode fibers (SMF), where only photons in a Gaussian mode can be collected. The collection modes possess typical Gaussian parameters, namely a beam waist and a focal plane position. The collection efficiency of photons highly depends on the choice of both parameters. The exact focal plane position of the pump beam relative to those of the detection modes is difficult to determine in a real experiment. Usually, theoretical and experimental studies assume that the focal plane positions of the pump and the generated beams are positioned in the center of the crystal. The displacement of beam focal planes can lead to deviations from expected results and the coupling efficiency into SMF can decrease. In this study, we theoretically examine variable positions of focal planes in the Laguerre–Gaussian basis, a popular experimental modal decomposition of the spatial biphoton state. We explore how the choice of focal plane positions affects the spatial and temporal properties and the purity of the photon pairs. We present SPDC setups where precise knowledge of the focal plane position is essential and scenarios where focal plane displacements have negligible impact on experimental outcomes. Graphical Abstract
We experimentally study the spatial properties of the field generated by spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) when the pump laser beam is strongly focused in the nonlinear crystal. Special attention is paid to classical intensity measurements with a CCD camera. We introduce the concept of a classical equivalent source that replicates all the coherence properties of SPDC light and explains all our experimental results. We show that, in contrast with experiments with a well-collimated pump, here both the phase-matching conditions and the position of the focusing plane determine the measured intensity profiles in the image plane of the crystal. The transition from the near-field regime to the far field is investigated. Measurements of two-photon correlations under strong focusing are also presented and the special features thereof are discussed.