# Efficient generation and spectral characterization of spectrally factorable biphotons

## TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the generation of highly pure, spectrally unentangled biphotons using a novel crystal and phase-matching technique, and introduces an efficient, high-resolution spectral characterization method with a dispersion compensation module.

## Contribution

It presents the highest heralded-state spectral purity of 99% for biphotons without spectral filtering and introduces a fast, high-resolution spectral measurement technique using a customizable dispersion compensation module.

## Key findings

- Achieved 99% spectral purity of biphotons without filtering
- Developed a high-resolution spectral characterization method
- Demonstrated efficient biphoton generation with custom phase-matching

## Abstract

Spectrally unentangled biphotons with high single-spatiotemporal-mode purity are highly desirable for many quantum information processing tasks. We generate biphotons with an inferred heralded-state spectral purity of 99%, the highest to date without any spectral filtering, by pulsed spontaneous parametric downconversion in a custom-fabricated periodically-poled KTiOPO$_4$ crystal under extended Gaussian phase-matching conditions. To efficiently characterize the joint spectral intensity of the generated biphotons at high spectral resolution, we employ a commercially available dispersion compensation module (DCM) with a dispersion equivalent to 100 km of standard optical fiber and with an insertion loss of only 2.8 dB. Compared with the typical method of using two temperature-stabilized equal-length fibers that incurs an insertion loss of 20 dB per fiber, the DCM approach achieves high spectral resolution in a much shorter measurement time. Because the dispersion amount and center wavelengths of DCMs can be easily customized, spectral characterization in a wide range of quantum photonic applications should benefit significantly from this technique.