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Optics Letters

Experimental demonstration of a pure third-order optical parametric downconversion process

Julien Douady, Benoı̂t Boulanger

Published Dec 1, 2004• 77 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We report what is, to the best of our knowledge, the first experiment on third-order optical difference frequency generation. The nonlinear medium is a phase-matched KTiOPO4 crystal pumped at 532 and 1665 nm in the picosecond regime. The proposed experimental configuration leads to an efficient and pure cubic process, with generation of 4.5 microJ/pulse at 1474 nm. This result opens the way to new quantum experiments on three-photon Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger entanglement.

DOI
10.1364/ol.29.002794

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We report what is, to the best of our knowledge, the first experiment on third-order optical difference frequency generation. The nonlinear medium is a phase-matched KTiOPO4 crystal pumped at 532 and 1665 nm in the picosecond regime. The proposed experimental configuration leads to an efficient and pure cubic process, with generation of 4.5 microJ/pulse at 1474 nm. This result opens the way to new quantum experiments on three-photon Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger entanglement.
We report implementation and modelling of an efficient photon-triplets generation experiment based on a difference-frequency-mixing of two picosecond beams at 532 nm and 1491 nm in a type II phase-matched KTP crystal. The photon-triplets flux was measured as a function of the energy of the two incident beams using a coincidence protocol. A maximal flux of 11.6 photon-triplets per second was achieved. These experimental data were satisfactorily described by a semiclassical model based on the quantum fluctuations of vacuum and the classical equations of nonlinear optics.
We conceived an optical generator leading to the production of 3×1013 triple photons per pulse with a full-width duration of 88ps at 1/e2, by using a third-order optical parametric interaction phase-matched in a KTP crystal and pumped at 532 nm. The triple photon generation is stimulated by two photons orthogonally polarized emitted by a homemade optical parametric oscillator emitting at 1665 nm. The energy generated at 1474 nm is well modelized by an analytical model based on Jacobi elliptic functions. These results open the way to new quantum measurement relative to Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger state of light.
We demonstrate, for the first time to our knowledge, that efficient third-harmonic generation can be achieved with a cubic contribution much larger than the quadratic processes. An energy-conversion efficiency of 2.4% is achieved for cubic third-harmonic generation that is phase matched along the x axis of a KTiOPO(4) crystal by use of a picosecond fundamental laser emitting at 1618 nm. The associated cascading processes are only 10% of the pure cubic interaction, which is very suitable for study of the specific quantum optical correlations. Calculations of the third-harmonic generation conversion efficiency with respect to group-velocity dispersion and to the longitudinal Gaussian beam profile account well for our experimental results.
Triple Photon Generation (TPG) is a third-order nonlinear optical interaction in which a photon of energy ℏωp splits into three photons at ℏω1, ℏω2, and ℏω3, with ℏωp = ℏω1 + ℏω2 + ℏω3. The triplets possess different quantum signatures from those of photon pairs, with strong interest in quantum information. In the present study, we report the first experimental demonstration of TPG stimulated over one mode of the triplet, at ℏω1, whereas previous work on TPG concerned stimulation over two modes, at ℏω2 and ℏxω3. The nonlinear medium is a KTiOPO4 crystal pumped in the picosecond regime (15 ps, 10 Hz) at λp = 532 nm. The stimulation beam is emitted by a tunable optical parametric generator: the phase-matching was found at a stimulation wavelength λ1 = 1491 nm, the other two modes of the triplet being at λ2 = λ3 = 1654 nm in orthogonal polarizations. Using superconducting nanowire single photon detectors, the measurements of the polarizations and wavelength signatures of the two generated modes are in full agreement with calculations. It has been possible to generate a total number of photons per pulse on modes 2 and 3 up to 2 × 104, which corresponds to the generation of 104 triplets per pulse, or 105 triplets per second since the repetition rate is equal to 10 Hz. We interpreted these results in the framework of a model we developed on the basis of the nonlinear momentum operator in the Heisenberg representation under the undepleted pump and stimulation approximation.