Spectral characterization of photon-pair sources via classical sum-frequency generation

TL;DR

This paper introduces a high-resolution spectral measurement technique using sum-frequency generation to characterize and optimize photon-pair sources for quantum applications, surpassing traditional methods in resolution and noise performance.

Contribution

The authors demonstrate a novel spectral measurement method via sum-frequency generation that achieves high resolution and noise suppression, applicable to challenging collinear degenerate sources.

Findings

Achieved 40 pm spectral resolution with >40 dB SNR.

Successfully characterized phase-matching spectrum of a nonlinear crystal.

Provided a method to optimize pump spectra for indistinguishable photon pairs.

Abstract

Tailoring spectral properties of photon pairs is of great importance for optical quantum information and measurement applications. High-resolution spectral measurement is a key technique for engineering spectral properties of photons, making them ideal for various quantum applications. Here we demonstrate spectral measurements and optimization of frequency-entangled photon pairs produced via spontaneous parametric downconversion (SPDC), utilizing frequency-resolved sum-frequency generation (SFG), the reverse process of SPDC. A joint phase-matching spectrum of a nonlinear crystal around 1580 nm is captured with a 40 pm resolution and a > 40 dB signal-to-noise ratio, significantly improved compared to traditional frequency-resolved coincidence measurements. Moreover, our scheme is applicable to collinear degenerate sources whose characterization is difficult with previously demonstrated stimulated difference frequency generation (DFG). We also illustrate that the observed phase-matching function is useful for finding an optimal pump spectrum to maximize the spectral indistinguishability of SPDC photons. We expect that our precise spectral characterization technique will be useful tool for characterizing and tailoring SPDC sources for a wide range of optical quantum applications