Generation of hyper-entanglement in polarization/energy-time and discrete-frequency/energy-time in optical fibers

Discrete frequency-bin entanglement generation via cascaded second-order nonlinear processes in Sagnac interferometer

Discrete frequency-bin entanglement is an essential resource for applications in quantum information processing. In this Letter, we propose and demonstrate a scheme to generate discrete frequency-bin entanglement with a single piece of periodically poled lithium niobate waveguide in a modified Sagnac interferometer. Correlated two-photon states in both directions of the Sagnac interferometer are generated through cascaded second-order optical nonlinear processes. A relative phase difference between the two states is introduced by changing the polarization state of pump light, thus manipulating the two-photon state at the output of the Sagnac interferometer. The generated two-photon state is sent into a fiber polarization splitter, and then a pure discrete frequency-bin entangled two-photon state is obtained by setting the pump light. The frequency entanglement property is measured by a spatial quantum beating with a visibility of 96.0±6.1%. The density matrix is further obtained with a fidelity of 98.0±3.0% to the ideal state. Our demonstration provides a promising method for the generation of pure discrete frequency-bin entanglement at the telecom band, which is desired in quantum photonics.

Compensation-free broadband entangled photon pair sources

Quantum sources that provide broadband biphotons entangled in both polarization and time-energy degrees of freedom are a rich quantum resource that finds many applications in quantum communication, sensing, and metrology. Creating such a source while maintaining high entanglement quality over a broad spectral range is a challenge, which conventionally requires various compensation steps to erase temporal, spectral, or spatial distinguishabilities. Here, we point out that in fact compensation is not always necessary. The key to generate broadband polarization-entangled biphotons via type-II spontaneous parametric downcoversion (SPDC) without compensation is to use nonlinear materials with sufficiently low group birefringence that the biphoton bandwidth becomes dispersion-limited. Most nonlinear crystals or waveguides cannot meet this condition, but it is easily met in fiber-based systems. We reveal the interplay of group birefringence and dispersion on SPDC bandwidth and polarization entanglement quality. We show that periodically poled silica fiber (PPSF) is an ideal medium to generate high-concurrence (>0.977) polarization-entangled photons over a broad spectral range (>77nm), directly and without compensation. This is the highest polarization-entanglement concurrence reported that is maintained over a broad spectral range from a compensation-free source.

Improving the timing jitter of a superconducting nanowire single-photon detection system

Low timing jitter is a unique merit of superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPDs) for time-correlated applications. Quantitative analysis was performed for the SNSPD system. Aided by an oscilloscope with an optimal signal amplitude, we were able to measure a full width at half-maximum system timing jitter as low as 14.2 ps for a high-switching-current SNSPD using a room-temperature low-noise amplifier. When using a time-correlated single-photon counting module, the system timing jitter was 17.3 ps. The detector's intrinsic timing jitter was estimated at ∼12.0  ps.

Fiber-based frequency-degenerate polarization entangled photon pair sources for information encoding

In this paper, a generation scheme of telecom band frequency-degenerate polarization entangled photon pairs is proposed and demonstrated experimentally. It is based on the vector spontaneous four wave mixing (SFWM) process in a Sagnac fiber loop, in which two frequency-degenerate and polarization orthogonal biphoton states have equal probabilities for generating along the clockwise and counter-clockwise directions. The quantum interference between them at the 50:50 fiber coupler of the fiber loop separates the two frequency-degenerate photons in a pair, leading to the generation of polarization entanglement. The raw fringe visibilities of the two-photon interferences under two non-orthogonal polarization bases are 91% and 90%, respectively. Information can be encoded on the generated photon pairs using the polarization entangled Bell states, which requires the frequency-degenerate property. It is demonstrated by a simplified Bell state measurement with a fringe visibility of 83%.