We demonstrate optical interferometry beyond the limits imposed by the photon wavelength using 'triggered' entangled photon pairs from a semiconductor quantum dot. Interference fringes of the entangled biphoton state reveals a periodicity half of that obtained with the single photon, and much less than that of the pump laser. High fringe visibility indicates that biphoton interference is less sensitive to decoherence than interference of two sequential single photons. The results suggest that quantum interferometry may be possible using a semiconductor LED-like device.
We have generated a new type of biphoton state by cavity-enhanced down-conversion in a type-II phase-matched, periodically-poled KTiOPO_4 (PPKTP) crystal. By introducing a weak intracavity birefringence, the polarization-entangled output was modulated between the singlet and triplet states according to the arrival-time difference of the signal and idler photons. This cavity-enhanced biphoton source is spectrally bright, yielding a single-mode fiber-coupled coincidence rate of 0.7 pairs/s per mW of pump power per MHz of down-conversion bandwidth. Its novel biphoton behavior may be utilized in s…
Bell state measurements, in which two quantum bits are projected onto a maximally entangled state, are an essential component of quantum information science. We propose and experimentally demonstrate the projection of two quantum systems with three states (qutrits) onto a generalized maximally entangled state. Each qutrit is represented by the polarization of a pair of indistinguishable photons - a biphoton. The projection is a joint measurement on both biphotons using standard linear optics elements. This demonstration enables the realization of quantum information protocols with qutrits, suc…
We demonstrate a technique that allows to fully control the bandwidth of entangled photons independently of the frequency band of interest and of the nonlinear crystal. We show that this technique allows to generate nearly transform-limited biphotons with almost one octave of bandwidth (hundreds of THz) which corresponds to correlation times of just a few femtoseconds. The presented method becomes an enabling tool for attosecond entangled-photons quantum optics. The technique can also be used to generate paired photons with a very high degree of entanglement.
We theoretically investigate the spectral property of biphoton state from the cascade emissions from a Doppler-broadened atomic ensemble. This biphoton state is spontaneously created in the four-wave-mixing process. The upper transition of the emissions lies in telecom bandwidth, which prevails in fiber-based quantum communication for low-loss transmission. We obtain the spectral property in terms of superradiant decay rates of the lower transition, excitation pulse durations, and temperature of the medium. We quantify their frequency entanglement by Schmidt decomposition and find that more en…
We demonstrate Werner-like polarization-entangled state generation disapproving local hidden variable theory from a single semiconductor quantum dot. By exploiting tomographic analysis with temporal gating, we find biphoton states are mapped on the Werner state, which is crucial for quantum information applications due to its versatile ramifications such as usefulness to teleportation. Observed time evolution of the biphoton state brings us systematic understanding on a relationship between tomographically reconstructed biphoton state and a set of parameters characterizing exciton state includ…
A frequency-multiplexed entangled photon pair and a high-dimensional hyperentangled photon pair are useful to realize a high-capacity quantum communication. A biphoton frequency comb (BFC) with entanglement can be used to prepare both states. We demonstrate polarization entangled BFCs with over 1400 frequency modes, which is approximately two orders of magnitude larger than those of earlier entangled BFCs, by placing a singly resonant periodically poled LiNbO3 waveguide resonator within a Sagnac loop. The BFCs are demonstrated by measuring the joint spectral intensity, cross-correlation, and a…
Frequency-Resolved Simulations of Highly Entangled Biphoton States: Beyond the Single-Pair Approximation. II. Application to Entanglement-based Quantum Key Distribution
The synthesis of 3 and 4 abstract polymer chains divided into two sexes is considered, where the degree of kinship of the chains is determined by their overlap. It is shown that the use of some types of entangled bi-photon in one-way control gives a difference in the degree of kinship between the legal and nonlegal pairs that is unattainable with classical control. This example demonstrates the quantum superiority in distributed computing, coming from the violation of the Bell inequality. It may be of interest for revealing the quantum mechanisms of synthesis of real biopolymers with direction…
We study the generation of biphoton modally entangled states in such waveguide structures that lead to spectrum broadening. The process of spontaneous parametric down conversion (SPDC) has been considered for the biphoton generation. The main subject of our study is the dependence of the biphoton spectra on the structure spatial characteristics. The representation of the core structures as definite assembles of nonlinear layers allows us to find analytical description for biphoton spectrum. We show that chirped biphotons with discrete as well as continuous spectra can be generated depending on…
In this letter, we report a polarization-entangled photon-pair source based on type-II spontaneous parametric down conversion at telecom O-band in periodically poled silica fiber (PPSF). The photon-pair source exhibits more than 130 nm (~24 THz) emission bandwidth centered at 1306.6 nm. The broad emission spectrum results in a short biphoton correlation time and we experimentally demonstrate a Hong-Ou-Mandel interference dip with a full width of 26.6 fs at half maximum. Owing to the low birefringence of the PPSF, the biphotons generated from type-II SPDC are polarization-entangled over the ent…
Bell states are a fundamental resource in photonic quantum information processing. These states have been generated successfully in many photonic degrees of freedom. Their manipulation, however, in the momentum space remains challenging. Here, we present a scheme for engineering the symmetry of two-photon states entangled in the transverse momentum degree of freedom through the use of a spatially variable phase object. We demonstrate how a Hong-Ou-Mandel interferometer must be constructed to verify the symmetry in momentum entanglement via photon "bunching"/"anti-bunching" observation. We also…
A double-slit experiment with entangled photons is theoretically analyzed. It is shown that, under suitable conditions, two entangled photons of wavelength $λ$ can behave like a \emph{biphoton} of wavelength $λ/2$. The interference of these biphotons, passing through a double-slit can be obtained by detecting both photons of the pair at the same position. This is in agreement with the results of an earlier experiment. More interestingly, we show that even if the two entangled photons are separated by a polarizing beam splitter, they can still behave like a biphoton of wavelength $λ/2$. In this…
Spontaneous parametric down conversion has been shown to be a reliable source of entangled photons. Amongst the wide range of properties that have been shown to be entangled, it is the orbital angular momentum that is the focus of our study. We investigate, in particular, the bi-photon state generated using a Gaussian pump beam. We derive an expression for the simultaneous correlations in the orbital angular momentum and radial momentum of the down-converted Laguerre-Gaussian beams. Our result allows us, for example, to calculate the spiral bandwidth with no restriction on the geometry of the …
It is shown that parametric downconversion, with a short-duration pump pulse and a long nonlinear crystal that is appropriately phase matched, can produce a frequency-entangled biphoton state whose individual photons are coincident in frequency. Quantum interference experiments which distinguish this state from the familiar time-coincident biphoton state are described.
We derive a first order differential equation for the decoherence of an orbital angular momentum entangled biphoton state propagating through a turbulent atmosphere. The derivation is based on the distortion that orbital angular momentum states experience due to propagation through a thin sheet of turbulent atmosphere. This distortion is treated as an infinitesimal transformation leading to a first order differential equation, which we call an infinitesimal propagation equation. The equation is applied to a simple qubit case to show how the entanglement decays.
We theoretically propose a biphoton entanglement-enhanced multidimensional spectroscopic technique as a probe for the dissipative polariton dynamics in the ultrafast regime. It is applied to the cavity-confined monomeric photosynthetic complex that represents a prototypical multi-site excitonic quantum aggregate. The proposed technique is shown to be particularly sensitive to inter-manifold polariton coherence between the two and one-excitation subspaces. It is demonstrated to be able to monitor the dynamical role of cavity-mediated excitonic correlations, and dephasing in the presence of phon…
We demonstrate a chip-integrated semiconductor source that combines polarization and frequency entanglement, allowing the generation of entangled biphoton states in a hybrid degree of freedom without postmanipulation. Our AlGaAs device is based on type-II spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) in a counterpropagating phase-matching scheme, in which the modal birefringence lifts the degeneracy between the two possible nonlinear interactions. This allows the direct generation of polarization-frequency entangled photons, at room temperature and telecom wavelength, and in two distinct spati…
Photonic time-frequency entanglement is a promising resource for quantum information processing technologies. We investigate swapping of continuous-variable entanglement in the time-frequency degree of freedom using three-wave mixing in the low-gain regime with the aim of producing heralded biphoton states with high purity and low multi-pair probability. Heralding is achieved by combining one photon from each of two biphoton sources via sum-frequency generation to create a herald photon. We present a realistic model with pulsed pumps, investigate the effects of resolving the frequency of the h…
We describe and demonstrate a quantum state tomography for measuring the complex temporal waveform of narrowband biphotons. Through six sets of two-photon interference measurements projected in different polarization subspaces, we can construct the time-frequency entangled two-photon joint amplitude and phase functions in continuous-variable time domain. For the first time, we apply this technique to experimentally determine the temporal quantum states of narrowband biphotons generated from spontaneous four-wave mixing in cold atoms, and fully confirm the theoretical predictions.
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 b…
A conditioned unitary transformation ($90^o$ polarization rotation) is performed at single-photon level. The transformation is realized by rotating polarization for one of the photons of a polarization-entangled biphoton state (signal photon) by means of a Pockel's cell triggered by the detection of the other (idler) photon after polarization selection. As a result, polarization degree for the signal beam changes from zero to the value given by the idler detector quantum efficiency. This result is relevant to practical realization of various quantum information schemes and can be used for deve…
We report results of two-photon quantum holography where spatial information stored in phase holograms is retrieved by measuring quantum spatial correlations between two images formed by spatially entangled twin photons with a dimensionality of 1790 in the two-dimensional transverse space. In our experiments, the entire flux of spontaneous down converted photons illuminates the phase holograms and the photons of pairs signal-idler transmitted by the holograms are detected separately in far field on two electron-multiplying charge coupled device cameras.
Propagation of entangled photons in optical fiber is one of the fundamental issues for realizing quantum communication protocols. When entanglement in polarization is considered, arises the problem of compensating for the fiber effect on photons polarization. In this paper we demonstrate an effective solution where a Faraday mirror allows to cancel undesired effects of polarization drift in fiber. This technique is applied to a protocol for generating Bell states by a narrow temporal selection of the second-order intensity correlation function.
We describe a proof-of-principal experiment demonstrating a Fourier technique for measuring the shape of biphoton wavepackets. The technique is based on the use of synchronously driven fast modulators and slow (integrating) detectors.
We demonstrate a method to generate entangled photons with controlled spatial shape by parametric down conversion (PDC) in a 2D nonlinear crystal. A compact and novel crystal source was designed and fabricated, generating directly path entangled photons without the use of additional beam-splitters. This crystal supports two PDC processes, emitting biphotons into two beamlike modes simultaneously. Two coherent path entangled amplitudes of biphotons were created and their interference observed. Our method enables the generation of entangled photons with controlled spatial, spectral and polarizat…
We consider ramifications of the use of high speed light modulators to questions of correlation and measurement of time-energy entangled photons. Using phase modulators, we find that temporal modulation of one photon of an entangled pair, as measured by correlation in the frequency domain, may be negated or enhanced by modulation of the second photon. Using amplitude modulators we describe a Fourier technique for measurement of biphoton wave functions with slow detectors.
We investigate in a general form entanglement of biphoton qutrits and ququarts, i.e. states formed in the processes of collinear and, correspondingly, degenerate and non-degenerate Spontaneous Parametric Down-Conversion. Indistinguishability of photons and, for ququarts, joint presence of the frequency and and polarization entanglement are fully taken into account. In the case of qutrits the most general 3-parametric families of maximally entangled and non-entangled states are found, and anti-correlation of the degree of entanglement and polarization is shown to occur and to be characterized b…
We theoretically investigate the spectral entanglement of a multiphoton source generated from the cascade emissions in the cascaded cold atomic ensembles.\ This photon source is highly directional, guaranteed under the four-wave mixing condition, and is also highly frequency-correlated due to finite driving pulse durations and superradiant decay constants.\ We utilize Schmidt decomposition to study the bipartite entanglement of the biphoton states projected from the multiphoton ones.\ This entropy of entanglement can be manipulated by controlling the driving parameters and superradiant decay r…
We show that, when the integration time of the single photon detectors is longer than the correlation time of the biphoton, the attainable spatial resolution in ghost imaging with entangled signal idler pairs generated in type II spontaneous parametric down conversion is limited by the angular spread of single-frequency-signal idler pairs. If, however, the detector integration time is shorter than the biphoton correlation time, the transverse k-vectors of different spectral components combine coherently in the image, improving the spatial resolution.
Quantum entanglement is an integral part of quantum optics and has been exploited in areas such as computation, cryptography and metrology. The entanglement between photons can be present in various degrees of freedom (DOFs), and even the simplest bi-partite systems can occupy a large Hilbert space. Therefore, it is desirable to exploit this multi-dimensional space for various quantum applications by fully controlling the properties of the entangled photons in multiple DOFs. While current entangled-photon sources are capable of generating entanglement in one or more DOFs, there is currently a …
We demonstrate a simple, robust, and ultrabright parametric down-conversion source of polarization-entangled photons based on a polarization Sagnac interferometer. Bidirectional pumping in type-II phase-matched periodically poled KTiOPO4 yields a measured flux of 5 000 polarization-entangled pairs/s per mW of pump power in a 1-nm bandwidth at 96.8% quantum-interference visibility. The common-path arrangement of the Sagnac interferometer eliminates the need for phase stabilization for the biphoton output state.
We put forward the concept of quantum spiral bandwidth of the spatial mode function of the two-photon entangled state in spontaneous parametric downconversion. We obtain the bandwidth using the eigenstates of the orbital angular momentum of the biphoton states, and reveal its dependence with the length of the down converting crystal and waist of the pump beam. The connection between the quantum spiral bandwidth and the entropy of entanglement of the quantum state is discussed.
Generating nonclassical light offers a benchmark tool for the fundamental research and potential applications in quantum optics. Conventionally, it has become a standard technique to produce the nonclassical light through the nonlinear optical processes occurring in nonlinear crystals. In this review we describe using cold atomic-gas media to generate such nonclassical light, especially focusing on narrow-band biphoton generation. Compared with the standard procedure, the new biphoton source has such properties as long coherence time, long coherence length, high spectral brightness, and high c…
We report an experimental study of group-velocity dispersion effect on an entangled two-photon wavepacket, generated via spontaneous parametric down-conversion and propagating through a dispersive medium. Even in the case of using CW laser beam for pump, the biphoton wavepacket and the second-order correlation function spread significantly. The study and understanding of this phenomenon is of great importance for quantum information applications, such as quantum communication and distant clock synchronization.
Hong-Ou-Mandel interference, the fact that identical photons that arrive simultaneously on different input ports of a beam splitter bunch into a common output port, can be used to measure optical delays between different paths. It is generally assumed that great precision in the measurement requires that photons contain many frequencies, i.e., a large bandwidth. Here we challenge this well-known assumption and show that the use of two well-separated frequencies embedded in a quantum entangled state (discrete color entanglement) suffices to achieve great precision. We determine optimum working …
Photon pairs generated by spontaneous parametric down-conversion are essential for optical quantum information processing, in which the quality of biphoton states is crucial for the performance. To engineer the biphoton wavefunction (BWF) on-chip, the pump envelope function and the phase matching function are commonly adjusted, while the modal field overlap has been considered as a constant in the frequency range of interest. In this work, by utilizing modal coupling in a system of coupled waveguides, we explore the modal field overlap as a new degree of freedom for biphoton engineering. We pr…
Entangled multiphoton states lie at the heart of quantum information, computing, and communications. In recent years, topology has risen as a new avenue to robustly transport quantum states in the presence of fabrication defects, disorder and other noise sources. Whereas topological protection of single photons and correlated photons has been recently demonstrated experimentally, the observation of topologically protected entangled states has thus far remained elusive. Here, we experimentally demonstrate the topological protection of spatially-entangled biphoton states. We observe robustness i…
High-quality entangled photon pairs generated via spontaneous parametric down-conversion have made great contributions to the modern quantum information science and the fundamental tests of quantum mechanics. However, the quality of the entangled states decreases sharply when moving from biphoton to multiphoton experiments, mainly due to the lack of interactions between photons. Here, for the first time, we generate a four-photon Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger state with a fidelity of $98\%$, which is even comparable to the best fidelity of biphoton entangled states. Thus, it enables us to demons…
