Generation of Photon Pairs in Dispersion Shift Fibers through Spontaneous Four Wave Mixing: Influence of Self-phase Modulation

TL;DR

This paper investigates how self-phase modulation affects the quality of photon pairs generated via spontaneous four-wave mixing in dispersion shift fibers, highlighting its role as a source of background noise that degrades quantum correlations.

Contribution

It demonstrates that self-phase modulation induces background photons that impair quantum correlations in fiber-based photon pair sources, providing insights for optimization.

Findings

Self-phase modulation generates background photons in signal and idler bands.

Self-phase modulation degrades the quantum correlation of photon pairs.

Understanding this effect aids in optimizing fiber-based photon sources.

Abstract

Correlated signal and idler photon pairs with small detuning in the telecom band can be generated through spontaneous four-wave mixing in dispersion shift fibers. However, photons originated from other nonlinear processes in optical fibers, such as Raman scattering and self-phase modulation, may contaminate the photon pairs. It has been proved that photons produced by Raman scattering are the background noise of photon pairs. Here we show that photons induced by self-phase modulation of pump pulses are another origin of background noise. After studying the dependence of self-phase modulation induced photons in signal and idler bands, we demonstrate that the quantum correlation of photon pairs can be degraded by the self-phase modulation effect. The investigations are useful for characterizing and optimizing an all fiber source of photon pairs.