Guided-wave photonics for narrowband polarization entanglement

Hui Yan, J. F. Chen

Shapiro, Wong

Mohammed F. Saleh, Bahaa E. A. Saleh, Malvin Carl Teich

We examine the modal, spectral, and polarization entanglement properties of photon pairs generated in a nonlinear periodically poled two-mode waveguide (one-dimensional planar or two-dimensional circular) via nondegenerate spontaneous parametric down-conversion. Any of the possible degrees of freedom---mode number, frequency, or polarization---can be used to distinguish the down-converted photons while the others serve as attributes of entanglement. Distinguishing the down-converted photons based on their mode numbers enables us to efficiently generate spectral or polarization entanglement that is either narrowband or broadband. On the other hand, when the generated photons are distinguished by their frequencies in a type-0 process, modal entanglement turns out to be an efficient alternative to polarization entanglement. Moreover, modal entanglement in type-II down-conversion may be used to generate a doubly entangled state in frequency and polarization.

Gregor Weihs

Peng Chen, Xianxin Guo, Chi Shu +2 more

Manipulating polarization entanglement of paired photons is always of great interest for understanding the quantum nature of photons and exploring their applications in quantum information processing and quantum communication. Narrowband biphotons with polarization entanglement are especially important for a quantum network based on efficient photon–atom interactions. In most demonstrated cases, the polarization-entangled states are manipulated through the birefringent effect. In this Letter, we produce narrowband polarization-entangled biphotons from spontaneous four-wave mixing in cold atoms and demonstrate a new method to tune the phase of the polarization entanglement by varying the frequency of one of the classical driving lasers. This is achieved through two-photon interference with a path-exchange symmetry. Our result represents a precision control of polarization entanglement from the frequency domain, and may have promising applications in quantum information and precision measurement.

Antı́a Lamas-Linares, John C. Howell, Dirk Bouwmeester