Generation of two-photon entangled states through a cascaded nonlinear optical process in a quasiperiodic optical superlattice

Abstract

The search for new methods to produce entangled photons is a subject of great interest in quantum optics. We show theoretically that two_photon entangled states may be generated through a cascaded nonlinear optical process in a quasiperiodic optical superlattice. When an idler photon ωi produced from spontaneous parametric down conversion (ωp=ωs+ωi) combines with a pum p photon to produce a sum frequency photon ωb(ωb=ωi+ω p), the latter is entangled with the remaining signal photon ωi. Both a pulsed and a cw 532nm laser have been used to pump a quasi_phase matched LiTaO 3 crystal to generate simultaneously 630nm signal photons through parametric d own conversion and 460nm sum frequency photons. The advantage of this method is that entangled photons of short wavelength may be produced.