2009 Third International Conference on Quantum, Nano and Micro Technologies

Spectral Characterisation of Spontaneous Parametric-Down Conversion Entangled

Photons Source in Femtosecond Pulsed Regime

G. Brida, V. Caricato, M. Genovese, M. Gramegna S. P. Kulik

Optics Division Faculty of Physics
INRiM – Istituto Nazionale di Ricerca Metrologica Moscow State University
Turin, Italy Moscow, Russia
m.gramegna@inrim.it sergei.kulik@gmail.com

M. V. Fedorov L. A. Krivitsky
A. M. Prokhorov General Physics Institute, Department of Physics
Russian Academy of Sciences Technical University of Denmark
Moscow, Russia Lyngby, Denmark
fedorovmv@gmail.com biphoton@gmail.com

Abstract—We report on experimental measurements of Actually, the continuous development of new quantum
coincidence and single particle spectral shapes of biphoton techniques enables to explore always deeper the field of two-
signals when frequency entangled states are generated by photon correlation measurements and all what concernes
Spontaneous Parametric-Down Conversion (SPDC) crystals about the fundamental properties of two-photon correlation
pumped by short pulses. It is shown evidence for biphoton function. In particular, biphoton states can be characterized
coincidence spectrum narrower and single-particle one wider with respect to both discrete than continuous variables,
than the pump spectrum, with a large contrast between where the latter case is far from being fully investigated,
coincidence and singles distributions. The investigation of especially in the short-pulse pump regime.
biphoton correlations has been performed by fixing one
In this work the interest is focused on the study of the
monochromator at the maximal transmission wavelength on
down-converted signal gate and scanning the one placed in the
degree of entanglement with respect to the continuous
idler branch in order to observe the spectral distribution of frequency variables and the entanglement-induced wave-
single counts and coincidences. The degree of entanglement is packet narrowing of biphoton states, when the SPDC pump
evaluated by the ratio of the FWHM of single particle and has the form of a sequence of short pulses (femtoseconds
coincidence distributions: the greater the ratio, the greater is regime), and at given polarizations and propagation
the entanglement. The degree of entanglement in frequency directions of signal and idler photons. In such a case the
variables can be very high: it increases linearly with the length pump spectrum is relatively wide and it is possibile to
of the crystal, and decreases with the growing pump pulse. consider the frequencies of the signal and idler photons as
additional variables characterizing SPDC biphoton states [4-
Keywords: biphoton, entanglement. 6].
The entanglement degree of a two-particle wave function
has been evaluated by the parameter Rω , representing the
I. INTRODUCTION ratio between the entanglement-free wave-packet width
distribution and the coincidence one. This represents the
Entanglement is a fundamental resource in modern effective degree of entanglement when it is large and, as the
quantum optics that leads to many intriguing quantum preliminary experimental measurements show, the
properties, whose investigation greatly contribute to achievable entanglement of biphoton states can be very high
applicative developments into areas like quantum with a large contrast between coincidence and singles
information and technology, quantum metrology, and distributions.
fundamental physics [1-3].
Entanglement means nonfactorization of a multi-particle II. THEORETICAL ASSUMPTIONS
wave function, and for what concerns photons, such
correlation can be physically generated by a spontaneous
parametric down conversion (SPDC) process, that takes The present experimental work relies on the theoretical
place in nonlinear optical crystals, pumped by a strong proposal [4] aiming to demonstrate that when pairs of
electromagnetic field, by choosing suitably phase matching correlated photons are generated through SPDC by a train of
conditions. short pulses (femtosecond regime), it is possible to measure

978-0-7695-3524-1/09 $25.00 © 2009 IEEE 1

DOI 10.1109/ICQNM.2009.23

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 the degree of entanglement through frequency variables and
show that the achievable entanglement of biphoton states can
be very high. The physical reason of an high entanglement
relies on the temporal walk-off, i.e., slower propagation in a
crystal of the pump photons compared to the emitted ones.
Moreover, the theoretical assumptions consider a SPDC
spectrum relatively wide, a wide-crystal approximation, and
a Gaussian shape for the Fourier transformed pump field
strength. The working conditions considered a ‘e -> o + o’
SPDC decay, with a purely collinear propagation directions
of signal and idler photons.
In the framework of these assumptions and
approximations, the expression for the frequency-dependent
biphoton wave function results to be:

Figure 1. Sketch of the experimental set-up (HWP: Half Wave Plate; BS:
(1) Beam Splitter; SPAD: Single-photon Avalanche Diode; TAC: Time-to
Amplitude converter; MCA: Multichannel Analyzer).
wheretheenergyconservationrule = 1 + 2 is fullfilled
among pump, signal and idler beams, and the integration
over z goes over the entire length L of the crystal along the pump corresponds to a frequency of ωp = 4.74 * 1015 s-1 and
laser axis; Δ (ω1, ω2) is the phase mismatch. Δωp = 1.56 * 1013 s-1, with pulse duration τp = 177 fs.
The ratio between the FWHM of the single counts and The nonlinear interaction produces a frequency entangled
state through a type I collinear degenerate SPDC, where a
coincidence distributions, Rω = Δωs/Δωc , is considered to be
horizontally polarized beam hits the crystal and generates
a good measure of the entanglement degree for bipartite
two vertically polarized photons (‘e -> o + o’ SPDC decay).
systems, and is given by equation:
After a beamsplitter (BS) the photons address to two single-
photon detectors (SPAD: Perkin-Elmer SPCM-AQR-15),
operating in counting regime. In front of each detector it is
placed a monochromator with a spectral resolution of 0.2 nm
(2) determined by the width of the input/output slits.
One monochromator is fixed at the central wavelength of
SPDC (795 nm), the other one is scanned in a range around
where A and B are dimensionless constants related to the
the central wavelength in order to study the spectral
phase mismatch, L the crystal length, and τ the pump pulse
distribution for both single counts and coincidences.
duration.
After the detection process, the electrical pulses from the
This parameter is approximately equal to the Schmidt
SPADs are sent to a coincidence circuit, and the temporal
number K [4, and ref. therein] which is hard to be measured
distribution is analyzed by a Time-to-Amplitude converter
directly, therefore the Rω serves as an operational (TAC) and a Multichannel Analyzer (MCA).
entanglement measure. The greater R, the higher
entanglement between two photons; if Rω=K=1 the state is
completely separable. IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The degree of entanglement increases linearly with the
length of the crystal, and decreases with the growing pump The preliminary experimental measurements relative to a
pulse. 10 mm crystal, in comparison with the theoretical model [4]
for a similar configuration, are reported in Table 1.
The measured coincidence distribution obtained scanning the
III. EXPERIMENTAL SET-UP wavelength of the monochromator in the idler branch around
λc = 795 nm is sketched in Fig. 2, where it is visible a peak
The experimental apparatus, reported in Fig. 1, plays on a with Δλc = 0.49 nm, corresponding to a frequency ωc = 2.37
femto-second Mode-Locked pulsed source pumping, in our * 1015 s-1 with Δωc=1.46 * 1012 s-1.
case, a nonlinear LiIO3 crystal of 10 mm length, to generate On the other side, the spectral distribution of single counts
frequency entangled biphoton states. obtained scanning around the same central wavelength,
The pulse pump is supplied by a Coherent MIRA 900 results in a width of about Δλs= 75.08 nm, corresponding to
Laser at a working wavelength of 795 nm doubled in ωs = 2.37 * 1015 s-1 and Δωs = 2.24 * 1014 s-1.
frequency to obtain a short pulse of Δλp = 1.31 nm. This On the consequence of these results, the evaluation of the

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 TABLE I.

Preliminary Experimental
Theoretical Model
Results

Pump Pump

λp= 397,5 nm λp= 397,5 nm

Δλp = 1.31 nm Δλp = 1.31 nm

ωp= 4.74 * 1015 s-1 ωp= 4.74 * 1015 s-1

Δωp = 1.56 * 1013 s-1 Δωp = 1.56 * 1013 s-1

τp= 177 fs τp= 177 fs

Coincidences Distribution Coincidencse Distribution

λc= 795 nm λc= 795.6 nm

Δλc = 0.315 nm Δλc = 0.49 nm

ωc= 2.37 *1015 s-1 ωc= 2.37 *1015 s-1

Δωc = 0.94 * 1012 s-1 Δωc = 1.46 * 1012 s-1

Figure 2. Coincidence distribution obtained scanning the monochromator
Δλp ≈ 4.15 Δλc Δλp ≈ 2.66 Δλc 2 in the idler gate (0.2 nm resolution).

Single Counts Distribution Single Counts Distribution

distribution close to the spectral resolution of the
λs= 795 nm λs= 795 nm monochromator, the spatial-frequency chirp of the pump
pulse that takes place when the radiation propagates through
Δλs = 102 nm Δλs = 75.08 nm the filtering prisms, causing a depletion in the SPDC decay,
ωs= 2.37 *10 15 -1
s ωs= 2.37 *1015 s-1 and not ideal optical allignment of monochromator gratings
during a scan over more than 100 nm. All these effects will
Δωs = 3.05 * 1014 s-1 Δωs = 2.24 * 1014 s-1 be deeper investigated in a next step of the experiment.
Δλs ≈ 78 Δλp Δλs ≈ 57 Δλp

Entanglement Degree Entanglement Degree

Rω= 324 Rω= 153

ratio between the FWHM of the coincidence and single-

counts distributions gives Rω = Δωs/Δωc ~ 153, showing a
very high degree of biphoton entanglement, being it strictly
larger than 1, where Rw=1 represents a completely separable
state. The large contrast between the width of coincidence
and single-particle distributions is clearly visibile in the
graphycal comparison of the normalized curves reported in
Fig. 3.
The experimental measurement put in evidence anyway
that the value obtained for Rω results lower than theoretical
estimations (Rω ~ 324) performed for the parameters of
SPDC used in experiment.
The main possible sources for this discrepancy in the
preliminary results may be identified in a number of possible Figure 3. Single-counts distribution (FWHM = 75.08 nm) versus
causes: the narrow spectral width of the coincidences Coincidences distribution (FWHM = 0.49 nm).

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 V. CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE PLANS REFERENCES

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ACKNOWLEDGMENT

This work has been partially supported by Regione

Piemonte E14 contract, San Paolo Foundation and by CNR-
CNISM convention.

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