PPLN waveguide for quantum communication

We report on energy-time and time-bin entangled photon-pair sources based on a periodically poled lithium niobate (PPLN) waveguide. Degenerate twin photons at 1 314 nm wavelength are created by spontaneous parametric down-conversion and coupled into standard telecom fibers. Our PPLN waveguide features a very high conversion efficiency of about 10^-6, roughly 4 orders of magnitude more than that obtained employing bulk crystals [#!Tanzilli01a!#]. Even if using low power laser diodes, this engenders a significant probability for creating two pairs at a time - an important advantage for some quantum communication protocols. We point out a simple means to characterize the pair creation probability in case of a pulsed pump. To investigate the quality of the entangled states, we perform photon-pair interference experiments, leading to visibilities of 97% for the case of energy-time entanglement and of 84% for the case of time-bin entanglement. Although the last figure must still be improved, these tests demonstrate the high potential of PPLN waveguide based sources to become a key element for future quantum communication schemes. Received 13 July 2001     

On Relativistic Quantum Information Properties of Entangled Wave Vectors of Massive Fermions

We study special relativistic effects on the entanglement between either spins or momenta of composite quantum systems of two spin- \frac12\frac{1}{2} massive particles, either indistinguishable or distinguishable, in inertial reference frames in relative motion. For the case of indistinguishable particles, we consider a balanced scenario where the momenta of the pair are well-defined but not maximally entangled in the rest frame while the spins of the pair are described by a one-parameter (η) family of entangled bipartite states. For the case of distinguishable particles, we consider an unbalanced scenario where the momenta of the pair are well-defined and maximally entangled in the rest frame while the spins of the pair are described by a one-parameter (ξ) family of non-maximally entangled bipartite states. In both cases, we show that neither the spin-spin (ss) nor the momentum-momentum (mm) entanglements quantified by means of Wootters’ concurrence are Lorentz invariant quantities: the total amount of entanglement regarded as the sum of these entanglements is not the same in different inertial moving frames. In particular, for any value of the entangling parameters, both ss and mm-entanglements are attenuated by Lorentz transformations and their parametric rates of change with respect to the entanglements observed in a rest frame have the same monotonic behavior. However, for indistinguishable (distinguishable) particles, the change in entanglement for the momenta is (is not) the same as the change in entanglement for spins. As a consequence, in both cases, no entanglement compensation between spin and momentum degrees of freedom occurs.     

大气信道中单光子轨道角动量纠缠特性的研究

本文讨论了大气信道中轨道角动量纠缠光子对的纠缠度, 并利用von Karman大气湍流谱来建立双光子纠缠度的模型, 分析了大气湍流对不同轨道角动量纠缠光子对纠缠度的影响. 研究表明: 在大气信道中, 由于大气湍流的存在, 纠缠光子对的纠缠度随着传输距离z的增加而减小; 大气湍流强度越大, 纠缠光子对的纠缠度下降的越快, 纠缠光子对传输的距离越小; 在湍流强度相同的大气信道轨道角动量指数越大的纠缠光子对, 纠缠度下降得越慢, 纠缠光子对传输的距离越远.     

Nonclassical interference and entanglement generation using a photonic crystal fiber pair photon source

We demonstrate two key components for optical quantum information processing: a bright source of heralded single photons; and a bright source of entangled photon pairs. A pair of pump photons produces a correlated pair of photons at widely spaced wavelengths (583 nm and 900 nm), via a chi((3)) four-wave mixing process. We demonstrate nonclassical interference between heralded photons from independent sources with a visibility of 95% (after correction for background), and an entangled photon pair source, with a fidelity of 89% with a Bell state.     

基于Ⅱ类周期极化铌酸锂波导的通信波段小型化频率纠缠源产生及其量子特性测量

自发参量下转换过程制备的纠缠光源在量子光学及其相关领域有着广泛的应用.本文利用780 nm的分布式布拉格反射镜激光二极管抽运一块长10 mm的Ⅱ类准相位匹配的周期极化铌酸锂波导,产生了偏振正交的频率反关联纠缠光子对.通过实验结果与理论的完美结合得到,当进入波导的抽运光功率为44.9 mW时,下转换双光子对的产生速率为1.87×10~7s~(-1).利用单色仪对下转换光子的频谱进行分析,得到信号和闲置光子的中心波长分别为1561.43 nm和1561.45 nm,频谱宽度为3.62 nm和3.60 nm,双光子符合包络宽度约为3.18 nm,可以得到双光子的频率纠缠度为1.131.00,表征了双光子的频率纠缠特性.利用Hong-Ou-Mandel干涉仪测量双光子的二阶量子干涉特性,测得的干涉可见度为96.1%,干涉图谱的凹陷宽度为1.47 ps.     

Large-alphabet quantum key distribution using energy-time entangled bipartite States

We present a protocol for large-alphabet quantum key distribution (QKD) using energy-time entangled biphotons. Binned, high-resolution timing measurements are used to generate a large-alphabet key with over 10 bits of information per photon pair, albeit with large noise. QKD with 5% bit error rate is demonstrated with 4 bits of information per photon pair, where the security of the quantum channel is determined by the visibility of Franson interference fringes. The protocol is easily generalizable to even larger alphabets, and utilizes energy-time entanglement which is robust to transmission over large distances in fiber.     

Indistinguishable entangled photons generated by a light-emitting diode

A linear optical quantum computer relies on interference between photonic qubits for logic, and entanglement for near-deterministic operation. Here we measure the interference and entanglement properties of photons emitted by a quantum dot embedded within a light-emitting diode. We show that pairs of simultaneously generated photons are entangled, and indistinguishable from subsequently generated photons. We measure entanglement fidelity of 0.87 and two-photon-interference visibility of 0.60 ± 0.05. The visibility, limited by detector jitter, could be improved by optical cavity designs.     

纠缠相干态光场驱动下∧-型三能级原子的辐射谱

采用时间演化算符方法,研究∧-型=三能级原子与纠缠相干态光场共振相互作用的辐射谱.给出了辐射谱一般公式,并讨论在纠缠相干态光场驱动下的辐射频谱结构.结果表明,无论下能级简并与否纠缠相干态光场平均光子数很小时均出现拉比分裂,且强度随双模光场纠缠程度的增加而增加.当两下能级简并时,若两模场的平均光子数较小,辐射谱呈现对称多峰结构,若两模场的平均光子数较大,辐射谱呈现对称五峰结构.当两下能级非简并时,若两模场的平均光子数较小,辐射谱呈现对称多峰结构.若两模场的平均光子数较大,辐射谱呈现对称十峰结构.纠缠相干光与非纠缠相干光辐射谱的本质差别有两点:一是双模光场强量子关联导致纠缠度越强拉比峰强度越高;二是存在纠缠时由于两模场相干性导致辐射谱呈现对称多峰结构.     

双纠缠原子在耗散腔场中的纠缠动力学

研究了能量损耗腔中,两纠缠二能级原子与单模辐射场相互作用过程中原子的纠缠动力学.结果表明:双纠缠原子的纠缠度演化特性决定于初始两原子间的纠缠度、纠缠形式、腔场的平均光数、腔场的衰变系数.当原子初始处于一特定纠缠态时,其纠缠度可以放大,并且不受腔场损耗的影响. 关键词： 二能级原子 纠缠度 密度算符 单模辐射场     

An Optimum Scheme to Generate Entangled Photon Pairs

An optimum scheme is proposed to generate a strong entangled photon-pair light source by combining two incident laser lights. Such entangled photon source should have various potential applications in many fields such as quantum metrology, quantum information, and quantum lithography, etc.     

Practical scheme for non-postselection entanglement concentration using linear optical elements

We report a practical non-postselection entanglement concentration scheme in which a maximally entangled Bell-state photon pair is produced from two pairs of partially (or non-maximally) entangled photons. Since this scheme is built only upon linear optical elements and does not require photon-number resolving detectors, it has immediate applications in experimental implementations of various quantum information protocols which require two-photon Bell-states.     

Evaluation of polarization entanglement generated by spontaneous parametric downconversion using photon number counting

Spontaneous parametric downconversion (SPDC) is widely used to generate entangled photon pairs; however, multi-pair emissions degrade the quality of the entanglement. We numerically evaluate polarization-entangled photon pairs created by SPDC. The effects of multi-pair emission events on the visibility of two-photon interference and on the fidelity (the probability overlap for ideal and real states) are analyzed using single-photon detectors that can count the number of incoming photons and discard multiphoton events. Compared with conventional threshold single-photon detectors, photon-number resolving single-photon detectors have higher fidelity for the same or lower visibility.     

Coarse graining makes it hard to see micro-macro entanglement

Observing quantum effects such as superpositions and entanglement in macroscopic systems requires not only a system that is well protected against environmental decoherence, but also sufficient measurement precision. Motivated by recent experiments, we study the effects of coarse graining in photon number measurements on the observability of micro-macro entanglement that is created by greatly amplifying one photon from an entangled pair. We compare the results obtained for a unitary quantum cloner, which generates micro-macro entanglement, and for a measure-and-prepare cloner, which produces a separable micro-macro state. We show that the distance between the probability distributions of results for the two cloners approaches zero for a fixed moderate amount of coarse graining. Proving the presence of micro-macro entanglement therefore becomes progressively harder as the system size increases.     

A simple scheme for conditional generation of macroscopic entangled states using χ nonlinearity

Experimental arrangement consisting of spontaneous parametric down converter with type-I phase matching (SPDCI) and a beam splitter with unitary Hadamard transformation is proposed for conditional preparation of macroscopic entangled states. The given method requires no photon number resolving detection to generate most probable macroscopic entangled state. We calculate the amount of entanglement stored in the macroscopic entangled states and develop a method to increase the amount of entanglement stored in the state.     

Entanglement for a Bimodal Cavity Field Interacting with a Two-Level Atom

Negativity has been adopted to investigate the entanglement in a system composed of a two-level atom and a two-mode cavity field. Effects of Kerr-like medium and the number of photon inside the cavity on the entanglement are studied. Our results show that atomic initial state must be superposed, so that the two cavityfield modes can be entangled. Moreover, we also conclude that the number of photon in the two cavity mode should be equal. The interaction between modes, namely, the Kerr effect, has a significant negative contribution. Note that the atom frequency and the cavity frequency have an indistinguishable effect, so a corresponding approximation has been made in this article. These results may be useful for quantum information in optics systems.     

Multistage entanglement swapping

We report an experimental demonstration of entanglement swapping over two quantum stages. By successful realizations of two cascaded photonic entanglement swapping processes, entanglement is generated and distributed between two photons, that originate from independent sources and do not share any common past. In the experiment we use three pairs of polarization entangled photons and conduct two Bell-state measurements: one between the first and second pair, and one between the second and third pair. This results in projecting the remaining two outgoing photons from pair 1 and 3 into an entangled state, as characterized by an entanglement witness. The experiment represents an important step towards a full quantum repeater where multiple entanglement swapping is a key ingredient.     

Entanglement generation using silicon wire waveguide

We report the first entanglement generation experiments using silicon waveguide. Using highly efficient spontaneous four-wave mixing in a 1.09 cm long silicon nanowire waveguide at room temperature, we successfully generated high-purity time-bin and polarization entangled photon pairs in the 1.5 μm band. We expect this entanglement source will solve the problems of previous telecom-band entanglement sources.     

On the distribution of 1550-nm photon pairs efficiently generated using a periodically poled lithium niobate waveguide

We report on efficient generation of 1550-nm photon pairs in a periodically poled lithium niobate waveguide using the spontaneous parametric down-conversion process. Such photon pairs are expected to find applications in fiber-based long-distance quantum communication. Pumping the waveguide with a pulsed semiconductor laser with a pulse rate of 800 kHz and a maximum average pump power of 50 μW, we obtain a coincidence rate of 600 s⁻¹. Despite only two single-photon detectors are used, we gain some information about the photon-number distribution. Our measurements are found to be in agreement with a Poissonian photon-pair distribution, but clearly differ from the expected outcomes for both conventional and two-mode squeezed states, the latter corresponding to a thermal photon-pair distribution. The Poissonian photon-pair distribution is also explained by comparing the coherence time of the pump light and of the detected photons. An average of 0.9 generated photon pairs per pulse can thus be inferred.     

Evolution of Atomic Entanglement for Different Cavity-Field Statistics in Single-Mode Two-Photon Process

We study the evolution of entanglement for a pair of two-level Rydberg atoms passing one after another into an ideal cavity filled with a single mode radiation field. The atoms interact with the cavity field via two-photon transitions. The initial joint state of two atoms that enter the cavity one after the other is unentangled. Interactions intervened by the single mode cavity photon field brings out the final two-atom mixed entangled type state. We use the well known measure appropriate for the mixed states, i.e. the entanglement of formation to quantify the entanglement. We calculate the entanglement of formation of the joint two-atom state as a function of the Rabi angle, for the Fock state field, coherent field and thermal field respectively inside the cavity. The change in the magnitude of atomic entanglement with cavity photon number has been discussed.     

Efficient Generation of Frequency-Multiplexed Entangled Single Photons

We present two schemes to generate frequency-multiplexed entangled (FME) single photons by coherently mapping photonic entanglement into and out of a quantum memory based on Raman interactions. By splitting a single photon and performing subsequent state transfer, we separate the generation of entanglement and its frequency conversion, and find that the both progresses have the characteristic of inherent determinacy. Our theory can reproduce the prominent features of observed results including pulse shapes and the condition for deterministically generating the FME single photons. The schemes are suitable for the entangled photon pairs with a wider frequency range, and could be immune to the photon loss originating from cavity-mode damping, spontaneous emission, and the dephasing due to atomic thermal motion. The sources might have significant applications in wavelength-division-multiplexing quantum key distribution.