Periodically-poled KTiOPO4 Crystal Research Articles

The single-cycle biphotons generated by noncollinear SPDC in the chirped QPM crystals

We analysis the noncollinear Spontaneous Parametric Down Conversion (SPDC) and compare the biphotons generated by the chirped Quasi-Phase-Matching (QPM) between the Periodically Poled Lithium Niobate (PPLN) and Periodically Poled KTiOPO4 (PPKTP) crystals. Due to the chirping of the crystals, the frequency response range of the biphotons would be greatly increased. For nonlinear SPDC, angular variation is limited (less than 0.06° in this paper), and the angle would narrow the frequency response range of the biphotons. We compare the effect of angle in PPLN crystals and PPKTP crystals for biphotons. Both the two crystals with chirped QPM, the single-cycle biphotons can be generated during noncollinear SPDC within a suitable angle range, which is favorable for wider applications in experiments.

Generation of bright polarization squeezed light at cesium D<sub>2</sub> line based on optical parameter amplifier

Quantum light field is very important source in quantum optics and quantum precision measurement, and the generation of quantum state of light is significant in quantum storage, quantum metrology and studying the interaction between nonclassical light and matter. The polarization squeezed light near the atomic transition has great potential applications in the precise measurement of magnetic field as its Stokes parameter’s noise is less than the standard quantum limit (SQL). Therefore, it is very important to generate the polarization squeezed light at atomic transition. We report in this paper the experiment on generating the bright polarization squeezed light at cesium D<sub>2</sub> line based on an optical parametric amplifier (OPA). The experimental system includes the following three parts: 1) a second harmonic generator (SHG), 2) an OPA, and 3) a detection system. The OPA has a similar structure to the SHG system with four-mirror ring cavity in which only the fundamental wave is resonant. A nonlinear type-I periodically-poled KTiOPO4 (PPKTP) crystal with a size of 1 mm × 2 mm × 20 mm is placed in the center of the cavity waist and its temperature is precisely controlled. The OPA is pumped by the 426 nm blue light which is generated by SHG and this OPA is operating below the threshold. The squeezed light at cesium D<sub>2</sub> line is produced when the crystal temperature is at its optimum phase-matching temperature and the OPA cavity is stabilized based on resonance. The generated squeezed light is combined with the coherent light on a polarizing beam splitter (PBS) to obtain the polarized squeezed light for either <inline-formula><tex-math id="M4">\begin{document}${\hat S_2} $\end{document}</tex-math><alternatives><graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="1-20191009_M4.jpg"/><graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="1-20191009_M4.png"/></alternatives></inline-formula> or <inline-formula><tex-math id="M5">\begin{document}${\hat S_3} $\end{document}</tex-math><alternatives><graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="1-20191009_M5.jpg"/><graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="1-20191009_M5.png"/></alternatives></inline-formula> of the Stokes parameter by controlling the type of squeezed light (parametric amplification or de-amplification) and the relative phase (0 or π/2) of two beams. And for <inline-formula><tex-math id="M6">\begin{document}${\hat S_1} $\end{document}</tex-math><alternatives><graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="1-20191009_M6.jpg"/><graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="1-20191009_M6.png"/></alternatives></inline-formula>, the amplitude-squeezed light (corresponding to parametric de-amplification) is the <inline-formula><tex-math id="M7">\begin{document}${\hat S_1} $\end{document}</tex-math><alternatives><graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="1-20191009_M7.jpg"/><graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="1-20191009_M7.png"/></alternatives></inline-formula> squeezed light. The maximum squeezing of 4.3 dB (actually 5.2 dB) is observed in a bandwidth range of 2-10 MHz. At present, the squeezing is mainly limited by the escape efficiency of OPA and the detection efficiency, and the OPA escape efficiency is mainly limited by the blue-light-induced loss of PPKTP crystal and the thermal effect of crystal. In the optical atomic magnetometer, increasing the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the system can effectively improve the sensitivity of the magnetic field measurement. This bright polarization squeezed light is expected to be used in the optical cesium atomic magnetometer to improve the sensitivity of the magnetometer.

Widely tunable room-temperature continuous-wave optical parametric oscillator based on periodically-poled KTiOPO4.

We report the first realization of widely tunable continuous-wave (cw) optical parametric oscillator (OPO) based on periodically-poled KTiOPO4 (PPKTP) at room temperature. By exploiting fan-out grating design in a 30-mm PPKTP crystal, and configured in an output-coupled singly-resonant oscillator (OC-SRO) configuration pumped at 532 nm in the green, the OPO provides finely tunable radiation across 741-922 nm in the signal and 1258-1884 nm in the idler, at a fixed temperature of 25 °C. The use of output coupling for the signal wave enables enhancement of OPO extraction efficiency to 30%, providing a maximum total output power of 1.65 W (450 mW of signal at 901 nm and 1.2 W of idler at 1299 nm) for 5.5 W of pump power. The output idler exhibits passive power stability better than 3.2% rms over >2 mins, and the extracted signal exhibits frequency stability of 194 MHz over more than 35 seconds, in excellent beam quality. The OPO performance in pure SRO configuration has also been investigated.

Thermal effects of the quantum states generated from the isomorphs of PPKTP crystal

We theoretically and numerically investigate the temperature-dependent properties of the biphotons generated from four isomorphs of periodically poled KTiOPO4 (PPKTP): i.e., PPRTP, PPKTA, PPRTA and PPCTA. It is discovered that the first type of group-velocity-matched (GVM) wavelength is decreased by 6.4, 1.2, 8.9, 25.6 and 6.3 nm, while the phase-matched wavelength is decreased by 4.4, −0.4, −1.2, 29.1 and 59.5 nm for PPKTP, PPRTP, PPKTA, PPRTA and PPCTA, respectively, when the temperature is increased from 20 °C to 120 °C. Although the maximal spectral purity of the heralded single photons is not changed at different temperature, the Hong-Ou-Mandel (HOM) interference shows different patterns due to a shift of the joint spectral amplitude. These thermal effects are very important for precise control of the quantum state for the future applications in quantum information processing, for example, in quantum interference or spectroscopy.

Generation of audio-band frequency squeezed light at 1.34 μm

Continuous variable (CV) audio-band frequency squeezed states at the fiber telecommunication wavelength is an important quantum resource for the practical applications based on optical fiber. As is well known, the optical power attenuation and phase diffusion effect of light at 1.3 μm in standard telecommunication fibres are low and small, respectively. The audio-band frequency squeezed light at 1.34 μm can be utilized to realize quantum precision measurement, such as quantum-enhanced sensing in the low-frequency range, laser interferometer for gravitational wave detection. In this paper, CV audio-band frequency vacuum squeezed states at 1.3 μm are experimentally generated by using a type-I degenerate optical parametric oscillator (DOPO) below the threshold. A home-made continuous-wave single-frequency dual-wavelength (671 nm and 1.34 μm) Nd:YVO4/LBO laser is used as a pump source for DOPO based on a type-I quasi-phase-matched periodically poled KTiOPO4 (PPKTP) crystal. Mode cleaners with a finesse of 400 and linewidth of 0.75 MHz are used to filter the noise of lasers at 671 nm and 1.34 μm, respectively. The intensity noises of the two lasers reach a shot noise level for analysis frequencies higher than 1.0 MHz and their phase noises reach shot noise level for analysis frequencies higher than 1.3 MHz, respectively. The low noise single-frequency 671 nm laser is utilized as a pump of the DOPO. The threshold power of the DOPO is 450 mW. In order to detect the audio-band frequency vacuum squeezed states, the power of local oscillator of a homodyne detector system is optimized to 60 μupW. Furthermore, the effect of common mode rejection ratio (CMRR) of detectors is discussed in detecting the audio-band frequency vacuum squeezed states. Improvement of CMRR of detectors is a good way to detect the audio-band frequency vacuum squeezed states effectively. When the phase matching temperature of PPKTP crystal is controlled at 53℃ by using a home-made temperature controller and the pump power is 95 mW, the vacuum squeezed states are generated at analysis frequency ranging from 8-100 kHz. A maximum measured squeeze of 5.0 dB is obtained at analysis frequency of 36 kHz. A 3.0 dB squeezed light is obtained at an audio-band frequency of 8 kHz.

Efficient generation and characterization of spectrally factorable biphotons.

Spectrally unentangled biphotons with high single-spatiotemporal-mode purity are highly desirable for many quantum information processing tasks. We generate biphotons with an inferred heralded-state spectral purity of 99%, the highest to date without any spectral filtering, by pulsed spontaneous parametric downconversion in a custom-fabricated periodically-poled KTiOPO4 crystal under extended Gaussian phase-matching conditions. To efficiently characterize the joint spectral intensity of the generated biphotons at high spectral resolution, we employ a commercially available dispersion compensation module (DCM) with a dispersion equivalent to 100 km of standard optical fiber and with an insertion loss of only 2.8 dB. Compared with the typical method of using two temperature-stabilized equal-length fibers that incurs an insertion loss of 20 dB per fiber, the DCM approach achieves high spectral resolution in a much shorter measurement time. Because the dispersion amount and center wavelengths of DCMs can be easily customized, spectral characterization in a wide range of quantum photonic applications should benefit significantly from this technique.

Continuous variable quantum entanglement at 1.34 m

Continuous variable (CV) quantum entanglement is a fundamental resource of CV quantum communication and quantum computation. It is useful in a wide variety of applications, including quantum teleportation, quantum dense coding, quantum key distribution, and high-precision quantum measurement. In this paper, we generate CV quantum entanglement at a telecommunication wavelength of 1342 nm by using a nondegenerate optical parametric amplifier (NOPA) with a type-Ⅱ periodically poled KTiOPO4 (PPKTP) crystal. A home-made continuous-wave single-frequency dual-wavelength (671 nm and 1342 nm) Nd:YVO4/LiB3O5 laser is achieved with output powers of 1.5 W (671 nm) and 1.3 W (1342 nm). Then a mode cleaner (MC1) with a fineness of 400 and linewidth of 0.75 MHz and a mode cleaner MC2 with a fineness of 400 and linewidth of 0.75 MHz are used to filter the noises of laser at 1342 nm and 671 nm, respectively. By using MCs, the intensity noise of laser reaches a shot noise level (SNL) for analysis frequencies higher than 1.0 MHz, and the phase noise of laser reaches an SNL for analysis frequencies higher than 1.3 MHz. Utilizing this kind of low noise single-frequency 671 nm laser as a pump, a doubly-resonant optical parametric oscillator with a threshold of 325 mW is realised. When the low noise single-frequency 1342 nm laser is injected as a signal and the relative phase between the pump and injected signal is locked to , the NOPA is operated at deamplification. After optimizing the temperature of the type-Ⅱ PPKTP crystal and at a pump power of 260 mW, Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR)-entangled beams with quantum correlation of 3.0 dB for both the amplitude and phase quadratures are experimentally generated. The strength of EPR-entangled beams is relatively low. It is maybe due to the low nonlinear conversion efficiency and large absorption of the type-Ⅱ PPKTP crystal at 671 nm and 1342 nm. The generated CV quantum entanglement at 1.34 m has lower transmission loss and smaller phase diffusion effect in a silica fiber. The research contributes to a high quality quantum source for the CV quantum communication based on existing telecommunication fiber networks.

Improvement of vacuum squeezing resonant on the rubidium D1 line at 795 nm.

We report on efficient generation of second harmonic laser and single-mode vacuum squeezed light of 795 nm with periodically poled KTiOPO4 (PPKTP) crystals. We achieved 111 mW of ultra-violet (UV) light at 397.5 nm from 191 mW of fundamental light with a PPKTP crystal in a doubling cavity, corresponding to a conversion efficiency of 58.1%. Using the UV light to pump an optical parametric oscillator with a PPKTP crystal, we realized -5.6 dB of a maximum squeezing. We analyzed the pump power dependence of the squeezing level and concluded that the UV light induced losses limit the improvement of the squeezing level. The generated squeezed light has huge potential application in quantum memory and ultra-precise measurement.

Generation of bright squeezed light at 1.5 m telecommunication band and its Wigner function reconstruction

The squeezed light at 1.5 m telecommunication band has been considered as an important resource of continuous variable (CV) practical fiber-based quantum information research because it is the lowest loss in fiber. A bright phase quadrature squeezed light for continuous variable at 1.5 m is demonstrated from a semi-monolithic degenerate optical parametric amplifier (DOPA) based on a periodically poled KTiOPO4 (PPKTP) crystal. The laser source is a continuous wave (CW) single-frequency fiber laser at 1.5 m, which is sent through a ring mode cleaner (MC) as a preliminary spatial and noise filter. And then the main portion of the output from the MC is used for external-enhanced second harmonic generation to obtain a CW single-frequency low noise laser at 780 nm that acts as the pump of the DOPA. The residual light of the output from the MC at 1.5 m is used as the injected signal light of the DOPA and the local oscillator (LO) of a balanced homodyne detector (BHD) system. The DOPA is built by using a type-I PPKTP crystal and a piezo-actuated output coupler and works in double-resonance case with a threshold power of 230 mW. When the DOPA is operating in the state of amplification, the output down-conversion field should be a bright phase quadrature squeezed light, where the relative phase between the pump and the injected signal is locked to 0. A 4.7 dB bright phase quadrature squeezed light is measured by the BHD system with the pump light of 110 mW and the injected signal of 3 mW, where the relative phase between the down-conversion field and the LO is locked to 0. Our measurement is limited by the optical losses and the detection efficiency. We have taken into account the detection efficiency of 86.6%, and the actual squeezing of the squeezed light being 6.3 dB. Moreover, because it is so crucial a process for CV quantum information system that the transmission and evolution of the CV squeezed states in the fiber may reappear in all information of the quantum states in the phase space, then the bright squeezed light is detected by a BHD system in the time domain, and its Wigner quasi-probability distribution function can be reconstructed by using a quantum tomographic technique. Furthermore, the bright squeezed state at 1.5 m is an ideal source for fiber-based long-distance quantum information because of its stability and bright mean field.

An ultra-broadband continuously-tunable polarization-entangled photon-pair source covering the C+L telecom bands based on a single type-II PPKTP crystal

The first experimental preparation is reported of an ultra-broadband continuously-tunable highly polarization-entangled photon-pair source via spontaneous parametric down-conversion in a single type-II phase-matched bulk periodically-poled KTiOPO4 (PPKTP) crystal. A tuning band of more than 60 nm for the down-converted photons is achieved experimentally, which covers the C+L telecom bands. The photon pair generation rate is about 1.63 × 104 (s mW nm)−1. The calculated S parameter values of CHSH inequality between 2.60 ± 0.04 (minimum) and 2.72 ± 0.07 (maximum) over the whole tunable range clearly demonstrate high entanglement of the source. In combination with the dense wavelength-division multiplexing (DWDM) technique, our source could be used to enhance the transmission capacity of a communication channel in the field of quantum communication.

Self-established noncollinear oscillation and angular tuning in a quasi-phase-matched mirrorless optical parametric oscillator

We experimentally demonstrate self-established noncollinear interactions in a quasi-phase-matched mirrorless optical parametric oscillator using a periodically-poled KTiOPO4 crystal with submicrometer periodicity. It is shown that the oscillation is established in a very specific geometric configuration where the two possible solutions of the energy and momentum conservation conditions become spatially degenerate and contribute coherently to the gain. In this configuration, the signal and the idler remain mutually counter-propagating. The tuning capabilities of a noncollinear mirrorless optical parametric oscillator are investigated.

Efficient ultrafast ultraviolet generation based on frequency doubling in short-period periodically-poled KTiOPO4 crystal

We efficiently generated ultrafast coherent ultraviolet radiation based on secondharmonic generation in periodically-poled KTiOPO 4 with the shortest period of 2.55 µm. The highest output power was measured to be 20.1 mW at 377.1 nm.

Generation of Non-Gaussian Quantum State of Light

We present generation of photon-subtracted squeezed state at 860nm, from continuous-wave squeezed vacua generated with a periodically-poled KTiOPO4 crystal as a nonlinear medium of a subthreshold optical parametric oscillator. We observe various kinds of photon-subtracted squeezed states, including “non-Gaussian” states similar to the single-photon state and superposition states of coherent states, simply by changing the pump power. Nonclassicality of the generated states clearly emerges as its negative region around the origin of the phase-space distributions, i. e., the Wigner functions. We obtain the value,-0.083 at the origin of the Wigner function, which is largest ever observed without any correction for experimental imperfections.

Generation of a squeezed vacuum resonant on a rubidium D1 line with periodically poled KTiOPO4

We report the generation of a continuous-wave squeezed vacuum resonant on the Rb D1 line (795 nm) using periodically poled KTiOPO4 (PPKTP) crystals. With a frequency doubler and an optical parametric oscillator based on PPKTP crystals, we observed a squeezing level of -2.75+/-0.14 dB and an antisqueezing level of +7.00+/-0.13 dB. This system could be utilized for demonstrating storage and retrieval of the squeezed vacuum, which is important for the ultraprecise measurement of atomic spins as well as quantum information processing.

Generation of high-contrast millijoule pulses by optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification in periodically poled KTiOPO_4

A new high-contrast, high-gain optical parametric chirped-pulse amplifier (OPCPA) architecture is demonstrated in periodically poled KTiOPO4 (PPKTP). This architecture overcomes parametric fluorescence contrast limitations of the OPCPA in periodically poled materials. The scheme is based on two passes of a single relay-imaged pump pulse and a free-propagating signal pulse through a 1.5 mm x 5 mm x 7.5 mm PPKTP crystal. The output energy of 1.2 mJ is generated at a center wavelength of 1053 nm by 24 mJ of pump energy. A prepulse contrast level of > 3 x 10(7) was measured with > 10(6) saturated gain in the amplifier. Amplified pulses were compressed to 200 fs. This simple and versatile concept requires only a modest pump energy from a commercial pump laser and represents a possible high-contrast front end for high-energy Nd:glass-based petawatt-class lasers.

Compact 492-nm light source based on sum-frequency mixing

More than 27 mW of 492-nm power was generated in a compact design, using intra-cavity sum frequency mixing of a laser diode and a diode-pumped solid-state laser in a periodically-poled KTiOPO4 crystal.

Sum-Frequency Generation in Periodically Poled KTiOPO4 with Large Tolerances of Temperature and Wavelength

In a sum-frequency generation system based on periodically poled nonlinear optical crystal, a new approach to the expansion of acceptance widths of temperature and wavelength has been demonstrated. By using periodically poled KTiOPO4 (PPKTP), the condition is found theoretically so that the tolerances of temperature and wavelength are enlarged. A temperature acceptance width of 60°C is obtained experimentally by mixing the light of two diode lasers (1590 nm and 808 nm) in a 10-mm-long PPKTP crystal.

Optical parametric oscillators for high pulse energy and high average power operation based on large aperture periodically poled KTP and RTA

We report on optical parametric oscillators (OPOs) based on large aperture periodically poled KTiOPO4 (PPKTP) and RbTiOAsO4 (PPRTA) pumped with high pulse energy and high average power Q-switched solid-state lasers. The OPOs were pumped with 1064-nm pulses of a diode-pumped Nd:YVO4 laser at 20 kHz repetition rate. The emitted signal wavelengths were 1.72 μm and 1.58 μm and the idler wavelengths were 2.79 μm and 3.26 μm, respectively. Pumping the PPKTP OPO with 7.2 W and the PPRTA OPO with 8 W average power, 2 W and 1.3 W total OPO output powers were generated. Two-dimensional measurements of the total OPO output power, the signal wavelength and the signal bandwidth in dependence on the crystal location indicated a good uniformity of the quasiphasematching structure over the entire 3-mm-thick crystals. This allowed pumping with larger pump beams and therefore with pulse energies of tens of millijoules. Pumping with different flash-lamp-pumped lasers, good OPO performance and high output pulse energies could be achieved for all pump lasers. Maximum input pulse energies of 56 mJ gave output pulse energies of as much as 18 mJ. The temperature tuning behaviors of both OPOs were measured, showing excellent agreement with calculated temperature tuning curves. New equations for temperature dispersion in RTA are presented. These results show that large-aperture PPKTP and PPRTA crystals are well suited for tunable nanosecond OPO operation with multi-watt average pump power and several tens of millijoules pump pulse energies.