On the control of the momentum distribution of paired photons generated by non-collinear type-II spontaneous parametric down-conversion

Abstract

We present a theoretical and experimental characterization of the joint spatial distribution of paired photons generated via non-collinear type-II spontaneous parametric down-conversion. Specifically, for the photons created parallel and perpendicular to the optical table, we determine the shape of such distributions and the degree of correlation of these photons. The characterization is done for different sizes of the pump beam waist. We found that it is possible to have different spatial distributions of the photons with the same degree of correlation.