Coincidence imaging is a technique that extracts an image of a test system from the statistics of photons transmitted by a reference system when the two systems are illuminated by a source possessing appropriate correlations. It has recently been argued that quantum entangled sources are necessary for the implementation of this technique. We show that this technique does not require entanglement, and we provide an experimental demonstration of coincidence imaging using a classical source. We further find that any kind of coincidence imaging technique which uses a "bucket" detector in the test arm is incapable of imaging phase-only objects, whether a classical or quantum source is employed.

We report on a momentum-position realization of the EPR paradox using direct detection in the near and far fields of the photons emitted by collinear type-II phase-matched parametric down conversion. Using this approach we achieved a measured two-photon momentum-position variance product of 0.01 variant Planck's over 2pi (2), which dramatically violates the bounds for the EPR and separability criteria.

We describe a new type of artificial nonlinear optical material composed of a one-dimensional metal-dielectric photonic crystal. Because of the resonant nature of multiple Bragg reflections, the transmission within the transmission band can be quite large, even though the transmission through the same total thickness of bulk metal would be very small. This procedure allows light to penetrate into the highly nonlinear metallic layers, leading to a large nonlinear optical response. We present experimental results for a Cu/SiO(2) crystal which displays a strongly enhanced nonlinear optical response (up to 12X) in transmission.

Coincidence, or ghost, imaging is a technique that uses two correlated optical fields to form an image of an object. In this work we identify aspects of coincidence imaging which can be performed with classically correlated light sources and aspects which require quantum entanglement. We find that entangled photons allow high-contrast, high-resolution imaging to be performed at any distance from the light source. We demonstrate this fact by forming ghost images in the near and far fields of an entangled photon source, noting that the product of the resolutions of these images is a factor of 3 better than that which is allowed by classical diffraction theory.

I investigate the properties of spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) involving co-linear Gaussian spatial modes for the pump and the photon collection optics. Approximate analytical and numerical results are obtained for the peak spectral density, photon bandwidth, pair collection probability, heralding ratio, and spectral purity, as a function of crystal length and beam focusing parameters. I address the optimization of these properties individually as well as jointly, and find focusing conditions that simultaneously bring the pair collection probability, heralding ratio, and spectral purity to near-optimal values. These properties are also found to be nearly scale invariant, that is, ultimately independent of crystal length. The results obtained here are expected to be useful for designing SPDC sources with high performance in multiple categories for the next generation of SPDC applications.