Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

Implementation of a bright frequency correlated photon pairs source based on a PPKTP crystal

María Fernanda Morris Garcés

Published Jan 1, 2021• 0 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

The implementation of a bright frequency correlated photon pairs source based on a PPKTP requires two principal parts: the process of Spontaneous Parametric Down-Conversion SPDC taking into account the quasi-phase-matching conditions and a single-frequency-mode laser source with a Gaussian profile. In this project, a theoretical approach of the SPDC process and the conditions needed to have an intense source of correlated photon pairs source are studied; especially, the process dependence of the temperature of the crystal and the pump wavelength. A single-frequency-mode pump laser source is implemented and focused to a PPKTP crystal. The photon pairs source is characterized spatially, in intensity and frequency. Through this, a bright photon pairs source with a coincidence rate per mW of pump power of 199 +- 1 kHz/mW is obtained, which is at least three times bigger than the rate of coincidences of the SPDC process using a traditional nonlinear crystal as a BBO.

Related papers

Bright photon pair source with high spectral and spatial purity

J. Schaake, Ryan S. Bennink, Philip G. Evans +2 more

Spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) is a reliable and robust source of photons for quantum information applications. For applications that involve operations such as entanglement swapping or single-photon heralding, two-photon states are required to be factorable (uncorrelated) in their spectral and spatial degrees of freedom. We report the design and experimental characterization of an SPDC source that has been optimized for high spectral and spatial purity. The source is pumped by the 776 nm output of a mode-locked Ti:Sapphire laser and consists of a periodically-poled Potassium Titanyl Phosphate (PPKTP) crystal phase-matched for collinear type-II SPDC. The dispersive properties of PPKTP at these wavelengths is such that it is possible to minimize the spectral entanglement by matching the widths of the pump to the spectral phase-matching function. The spatial entanglement is minimized through careful control of the pump focus, yielding nearly single-mode emission. An advantage of this approach is that the emission rate into the collection modes is very high, resulting in a very bright SPDC source. We also report a scheme that employs the output of collinear sources such as these to produce polarization-entangled photon pairs. The scheme, which requires only simple polarization elements, can be scaled to N-photon GHZ states.

Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE•May 13, 2011•1 citation

Characterization of entangled photon pairs generated by a PPKTP crystal

Antonio Linares Sancho

The Periodically Poled Potassium Titanyl Phosphate (PPKTP) is a type of non linear crystal that serves as a source of production of entangled pairs of photons. The produced pair of photons, known as the Signal and Idler photons, possess unique characteristics within their entanglement that allow the production of new technologies such as quantum cryptography and quantum teleportation. The creation of the Signal and Idler photons occur through a process named Spontaneous Parametric Down Conversion (SPDC), which occurs when the pump laser beam penetrates a non linear medium. SPDC follows conservation of momentum and energy, thus imposing phase matching conditions on the generated photon pairs. These conditions result in specific space and frequency correlations of the photons. The aim of this project is to characterize the entangled photon pairs in their spatial profile and frequency spectrum, known as the Joint Spectrum.

•Feb 4, 2023•0 citations

Bright filter-free source of indistinguishable photon pairs

Florian Wolfgramm, X. Xing, Alessandro Ceré +3 more

We demonstrate a high-brightness source of pairs of indistinguishable photons based on a type-II phase-matched doubly-resonant optical parametric oscillator operated far below threshold. The cavityenhanced down-conversion output of a PPKTP crystal is coupled into two single-mode fibers with a mode coupling efficiency of 58%. The high degree of indistinguishability between the photons of a pair is demonstrated by a Hong-Ou-Mandel interference visibility of higher than 90% without any filtering at an instantaneous coincidence rate of 450,000 pairs/s per mW of pump power per nm of down-conversion bandwidth. For the degenerate spectral mode with a linewidth of 7 MHz at 795 nm a rate of 70 pairs/(s mW MHz) is estimated, increasing the spectral brightness for indistinguishable photons by two orders of magnitude compared to similar previous sources.

arXiv:0806.4090•Optics Express•Oct 22, 2008•77 citations

The analysis of photon pair source at telecom wavelength based on the BBO crystal (Conference Presentation)

Andrzej Gajewski, Piotr Leszek Kolenderski

There are several problems that must be solved in order to increase the distance of quantum communication protocols based on photons as an information carriers. One of them is the dispersion, whose effects can be minimized by engineering spectral properties of transmitted photons. In particular, it is expected that positively correlated photon pairs can be very useful. We present the full characterization of a source of single photon pairs at a telecom wavelength based on type II spontaneous parametric down conversion (SPDC) process in a beta-barium borate (BBO) crystal. In the type II process, a pump photon, which is polarized extraordinarily, splits in a nonlinear medium into signal and idler photons, which are polarized perpendicularly to each other. In order for the process to be efficient a phase matching condition must be fulfilled. These conditions originate from momentum and energy conservation rules and put severe restrictions on source parameters. Seemingly, these conditions force the photon pair to be negatively correlated in their spectral domain. However, it is possible to achieve positive correlation for pulsed pumping. The experimentally available degrees of freedom of a source are the width of the pumping beam, the collected modes’ widths, the length of the nonlinear crystal and the duration of the pumping pulse. In our numerical model we use the following figures of merit: the pair production rate, the efficiency of photon coupling into a single mode fiber, the spectral correlation of the coupled photon pair. The last one is defined as the Pearson correlation parameter for a joint spectral distribution. The aim here is to find the largest positive spectral correlation and the highest coupling efficiency. By resorting to the numerical model Ref. [1] we showed in Ref. [2], that by careful adjustment of the pump’s and the collected modes’ characteristics, one can optimize any of the source's parameters. Our numerical outcomes conform to the experimental results presented in Refs [3,4]. Here we investigate typical, experimentally available source parameters: the widths of the pump beam and collected modes ranging from 20μm to 500m, the crystal length ranging from 1mm to 7.5mm while the pulse duration is set to 50fs, 100fs or 150fs. We achieve the correlation coefficient value as high as approximately 0.8, or – for different values of parameters – coupling efficiency equal to 0.76.

•Dec 7, 2016•0 citations

Towards ultrabright photon pair sources for quantum communication (Conference Presentation)

Rana Sebak, Emma Brambila, Tobias Bernd Gäbler +3 more

Entangled photon pairs play a crucial role in emerging quantum technologies, acting as tamper-proof padlocks in secure quantum communication, ultra-precise probes in quantum metrology and high-fidelity information carriers in photonic quantum computing. Amongst the many technological possibilities for generating photon pairs, sources based on spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) in second-order nonlinear crystals are still the workhorse tool in quantum optics laboratories, and more recently even in long-distance quantum communication with satellites. SPDC is a widely used method to create entangled photon pairs. The number of photon pairs that can be detected in a particular choice of collection modes, typically being optical single-mode fibers, depends critically on the spatial characteristics of the multi-mode SPDC emission as well as the particular beam waist of the collection modes. While several studies have already addressed the issue of optimal fiber coupling of SPDC photons in theory and experiment, the results of these studies arrive at different conclusions. Here, we present the results of a comprehensive experimental study on the optimal collection of photon pairs into single-mode optical fibers. Our approach is based on quasi-phase-matched type II SPDC from a periodically poled KTiOPO4 (ppKTP) crystal. We discuss the influence of pump and collection focal parameters on the spectral brightness and heralding efficiency, as well as practical issues of alignment tolerances into an optical single mode fiber. Further, Using two-photon interference (Hong-Ou-Mandel interference), we assess the spectral bandwidth of the photon pairs for variable crystal lengths. The results are in good agreement with our theoretical model, thus providing the recipe of building ultra bright and stable entangled photon sources.

SPIE Quantum Technologies•Mar 30, 2020•0 citations

Bright source of narrowband polarization-entangled photons from a thick type-II ppKTP crystal

Omshankar, Vivek Venkataraman, Joyee Ghosh

We demonstrate a high brightness (∼2.36 × 10 5 pairs/s/mW) polarization-entangled photon-pair source at 800-nm via spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) in a 3-cm long type-II ppKTP crystal pumped unidirectionally in a single-pass geometry. A high coincidences-to-accidentals ratio (CAR ∼ 1200) depicted by our source indicates a strong temporal correlation between the generated photon pairs. This correlated photon source is tunable from collinear to non-collinear emission of the photons and over a range of signal/idler wavelengths ∼8 − 9 nm corresponding to a temperature range of 20–60°C. We measure a quantum state fidelity F >95% with the singlet entangled state | ψ − ⟩=12(| H V ⟩−| V H ⟩) along with a violation of the CHSH-Bell’s inequality by ∼485 standard deviations ( S = 2.68 ± 0.0014).

Optics Express•Dec 28, 2023•21 citations
The implementation of a bright frequency correlated photon pairs source based on a PPKTP requires two principal parts: the process of Spontaneous Parametric Down-Conversion SPDC taking into account the quasi-phase-matching conditions and a single-frequency-mode laser source with a Gaussian profile. In this project, a theoretical approach of the SPDC process and the conditions needed to have an intense source of correlated photon pairs source are studied; especially, the process dependence of the temperature of the crystal and the pump wavelength. A single-frequency-mode pump laser source is implemented and focused to a PPKTP crystal. The photon pairs source is characterized spatially, in intensity and frequency. Through this, a bright photon pairs source with a coincidence rate per mW of pump power of 199 +- 1 kHz/mW is obtained, which is at least three times bigger than the rate of coincidences of the SPDC process using a traditional nonlinear crystal as a BBO.
Spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) is a reliable and robust source of photons for quantum information applications. For applications that involve operations such as entanglement swapping or single-photon heralding, two-photon states are required to be factorable (uncorrelated) in their spectral and spatial degrees of freedom. We report the design and experimental characterization of an SPDC source that has been optimized for high spectral and spatial purity. The source is pumped by the 776 nm output of a mode-locked Ti:Sapphire laser and consists of a periodically-poled Potassium Titanyl Phosphate (PPKTP) crystal phase-matched for collinear type-II SPDC. The dispersive properties of PPKTP at these wavelengths is such that it is possible to minimize the spectral entanglement by matching the widths of the pump to the spectral phase-matching function. The spatial entanglement is minimized through careful control of the pump focus, yielding nearly single-mode emission. An advantage of this approach is that the emission rate into the collection modes is very high, resulting in a very bright SPDC source. We also report a scheme that employs the output of collinear sources such as these to produce polarization-entangled photon pairs. The scheme, which requires only simple polarization elements, can be scaled to N-photon GHZ states.
The Periodically Poled Potassium Titanyl Phosphate (PPKTP) is a type of non linear crystal that serves as a source of production of entangled pairs of photons. The produced pair of photons, known as the Signal and Idler photons, possess unique characteristics within their entanglement that allow the production of new technologies such as quantum cryptography and quantum teleportation. The creation of the Signal and Idler photons occur through a process named Spontaneous Parametric Down Conversion (SPDC), which occurs when the pump laser beam penetrates a non linear medium. SPDC follows conservation of momentum and energy, thus imposing phase matching conditions on the generated photon pairs. These conditions result in specific space and frequency correlations of the photons. The aim of this project is to characterize the entangled photon pairs in their spatial profile and frequency spectrum, known as the Joint Spectrum.
We demonstrate a high-brightness source of pairs of indistinguishable photons based on a type-II phase-matched doubly-resonant optical parametric oscillator operated far below threshold. The cavityenhanced down-conversion output of a PPKTP crystal is coupled into two single-mode fibers with a mode coupling efficiency of 58%. The high degree of indistinguishability between the photons of a pair is demonstrated by a Hong-Ou-Mandel interference visibility of higher than 90% without any filtering at an instantaneous coincidence rate of 450,000 pairs/s per mW of pump power per nm of down-conversion bandwidth. For the degenerate spectral mode with a linewidth of 7 MHz at 795 nm a rate of 70 pairs/(s mW MHz) is estimated, increasing the spectral brightness for indistinguishable photons by two orders of magnitude compared to similar previous sources.
There are several problems that must be solved in order to increase the distance of quantum communication protocols based on photons as an information carriers. One of them is the dispersion, whose effects can be minimized by engineering spectral properties of transmitted photons. In particular, it is expected that positively correlated photon pairs can be very useful. We present the full characterization of a source of single photon pairs at a telecom wavelength based on type II spontaneous parametric down conversion (SPDC) process in a beta-barium borate (BBO) crystal. In the type II process, a pump photon, which is polarized extraordinarily, splits in a nonlinear medium into signal and idler photons, which are polarized perpendicularly to each other. In order for the process to be efficient a phase matching condition must be fulfilled. These conditions originate from momentum and energy conservation rules and put severe restrictions on source parameters. Seemingly, these conditions force the photon pair to be negatively correlated in their spectral domain. However, it is possible to achieve positive correlation for pulsed pumping. The experimentally available degrees of freedom of a source are the width of the pumping beam, the collected modes’ widths, the length of the nonlinear crystal and the duration of the pumping pulse. In our numerical model we use the following figures of merit: the pair production rate, the efficiency of photon coupling into a single mode fiber, the spectral correlation of the coupled photon pair. The last one is defined as the Pearson correlation parameter for a joint spectral distribution. The aim here is to find the largest positive spectral correlation and the highest coupling efficiency. By resorting to the numerical model Ref. [1] we showed in Ref. [2], that by careful adjustment of the pump’s and the collected modes’ characteristics, one can optimize any of the source's parameters. Our numerical outcomes conform to the experimental results presented in Refs [3,4]. Here we investigate typical, experimentally available source parameters: the widths of the pump beam and collected modes ranging from 20μm to 500m, the crystal length ranging from 1mm to 7.5mm while the pulse duration is set to 50fs, 100fs or 150fs. We achieve the correlation coefficient value as high as approximately 0.8, or – for different values of parameters – coupling efficiency equal to 0.76.
Entangled photon pairs play a crucial role in emerging quantum technologies, acting as tamper-proof padlocks in secure quantum communication, ultra-precise probes in quantum metrology and high-fidelity information carriers in photonic quantum computing. Amongst the many technological possibilities for generating photon pairs, sources based on spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) in second-order nonlinear crystals are still the workhorse tool in quantum optics laboratories, and more recently even in long-distance quantum communication with satellites. SPDC is a widely used method to create entangled photon pairs. The number of photon pairs that can be detected in a particular choice of collection modes, typically being optical single-mode fibers, depends critically on the spatial characteristics of the multi-mode SPDC emission as well as the particular beam waist of the collection modes. While several studies have already addressed the issue of optimal fiber coupling of SPDC photons in theory and experiment, the results of these studies arrive at different conclusions. Here, we present the results of a comprehensive experimental study on the optimal collection of photon pairs into single-mode optical fibers. Our approach is based on quasi-phase-matched type II SPDC from a periodically poled KTiOPO4 (ppKTP) crystal. We discuss the influence of pump and collection focal parameters on the spectral brightness and heralding efficiency, as well as practical issues of alignment tolerances into an optical single mode fiber. Further, Using two-photon interference (Hong-Ou-Mandel interference), we assess the spectral bandwidth of the photon pairs for variable crystal lengths. The results are in good agreement with our theoretical model, thus providing the recipe of building ultra bright and stable entangled photon sources.
We demonstrate a high brightness (∼2.36 × 10 5 pairs/s/mW) polarization-entangled photon-pair source at 800-nm via spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) in a 3-cm long type-II ppKTP crystal pumped unidirectionally in a single-pass geometry. A high coincidences-to-accidentals ratio (CAR ∼ 1200) depicted by our source indicates a strong temporal correlation between the generated photon pairs. This correlated photon source is tunable from collinear to non-collinear emission of the photons and over a range of signal/idler wavelengths ∼8 − 9 nm corresponding to a temperature range of 20–60°C. We measure a quantum state fidelity F >95% with the singlet entangled state | ψ − ⟩=12(| H V ⟩−| V H ⟩) along with a violation of the CHSH-Bell’s inequality by ∼485 standard deviations ( S = 2.68 ± 0.0014).