Joint spectral amplitude analysis of SPDC photon pairs in a multimode ppLN ridge waveguide

TL;DR

This study analyzes the joint spectral amplitude of SPDC photon pairs generated in a customized Lithium Niobate ridge waveguide, revealing polarization and spatial mode correlations useful for quantum information.

Contribution

It provides a detailed JSA analysis of SPDC in a multimode waveguide with different pump modes, highlighting the generation of hyper-entangled photon pairs with multiple degrees of freedom.

Findings

Photon pairs are negatively correlated with orthogonal polarizations.

Degenerate photon pairs at 1550 nm are emitted with high efficiency in the fundamental mode.

Non-degenerate pairs in higher order modes are generated, enabling hyper-entanglement.

Abstract

In this paper, we study the possible parametric down conversion processes in a periodically poled customized Lithium Niobate (LiNbO3) ridge waveguide. Our analysis of spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC), first, with a Gaussian pump beam mode and second, with an anti-symmetric Hermite-Gaussian HG (1,0) pump beam mode predict the possible down conversion processes in each case. From our JSA analysis, it is evident that the generated photons pairs in all these cases are negatively correlated and have orthogonal polarizations. In case of the former, degenerate photon pairs are emitted at 1550 nm with the highest efficiency in the fundamental waveguide mode. While, in case of the latter, non-degenerate photon pairs in different higher order spatial modes are generated. Such photons, thus, have multiple degrees of freedom, like polarization and spatial modes, which can be further harnessed towards hyper-entangled photons for quantum information applications.