Spontaneous four-wave mixing in standard birefringent fiber

Abstract

This thesis presents an experimental implementation and a theoretical inves-tigation of a source of photon-pairs. The source is based on the nonlinear optical interaction of two strong pump pulses in a birefringent single-mode optical fiber. The interaction is mediated by the χ(3) susceptibility of the fiber medium and results in the spontaneous creation of two photons, referred to as the signal and idler. Because the signal and idler photons are produced simultaneously, one of the photons can be used to herald the other. The creation of photons in such a fiber is motivated by the fact that their mode is matched for coupling into quantum information networks that are composed of similar fibers. Indeed, such a photon-pair source has already been shown to be capable of producing photon-pairs that are suitable for quantum computing and quantum communication applications. In this thesis we experimentally confirm that photon pairs can be generated through this type of fiber, using degenerate pump pulses. We then investigate theoret-ically the spectral correlations introduced between the photons when they are created by two pump pulses with different wavelengths. We find that the group velocity difference between the two pumps can be utilized to switch the nonlinear optical interaction on and off gradually, and showed that this feature can be employed for the creation of 100% uncorrelated photon pairs, which is a necessary condition for the heralding of pure single photons.