Photonic crystal fiber source of correlated photon pairs

Abstract

We generate correlated photon pairs at 839 nm and 1392 nm from a single-mode photonic crystal fiber pumped in the normal dispersion regime. This compact, bright, tunable, single-mode source of pair-photons will have wide application in quantum communications.

Spontaneous Nonlinear Scattering Processes in Silica Optical Fibers

“…Therefore, adjusting both parameters, it is possible to set the spectral width of the Stokes and anti-Stokes waves as well as their intensities. Because Stokes and anti-Stokes photons are created in pair, FPS as been extensively studied in the context of photon-pair generation for quantum optics and quantum information applications Brainis, 2009;Brainis et al, 2005;Dyer et al, 2008;Fan & Migdall, 2007;Lee et al, 2006;Li et al, 2004;Lin et al, 2006;Rarity et al, 2005;Takesue, 2006). When the scattered intensity becomes high enough (γP p 1), spontaneous scattering gets amplified.…”

“…It can also be detrimental as in fiber optics telecommunication, where spontaneous nonlinear scattering processes contribute to decrease the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) or in supercontinuum generation, where it limits the coherence and stability of the supercontinuum (Corwin et al, 2003;Dudley et al, 2006). In the emerging field of quantum photonics, fiber optical photon-pair sources are intrinsically based on the physics of the FPS Brainis, 2009;Brainis et al, 2005), while at the same time RS is the main factor that limits the SNR Dyer et al, 2008;Fan & Migdall, 2007;Lee et al, 2006;Li et al, 2004;Lin et al, 2006;Rarity et al, 2005;Takesue, 2006). This chapter reviews the physics of spontaneous nonlinear scattering processes in optical fibers.…”

Effects of noninstantaneous nonlinear processes on photon-pair generation by spontaneous four-wave mixing

“…A promising way to prepare single photons is by nonlinear optical processes that generate photon pairs such as spontaneous parametric downconversion [8][9][10] or spontaneous four-wave mixing (SFWM) in, e.g., dispersion-shifted fibers [11], photonic crystal fibers [12][13][14], or silicon waveguides [15,16]. Even though such nonlinear pair-production processes are inherently probabilistic, this can in many cases be compensated for by heralding [17,18], whereby detection of one photon in the pair implies the existence of the other.…”

Heralded single photon sources: a route towards quantum communication technology and photon standards

“…Moreover, lack of high brightness single photon sources, and imperfect detector characteristics such as detection efficiency, dark count rate, timing jitter, and dead-time, significantly limit the key rate production in QKD [4]. To meet the demands for higher-rate secret key production and pseudo deterministic pure single photon state sources, the quantum information community is presently engaged in a number of efforts aimed at improving QKD, including optimizing the quantum channels for minimum loss [5,6] (low loss optical storage and fast optical switches), improving detector efficiency [2,7,8], reducing detector timing jitter [9], reducing detector deadtime [10], and single-mode single-photon source engineering [11][12][13][14][15][16][17].…”