Xueshi Guo

An all-fiber source of pulsed twin beams for quantum communication

Motivated by the pursuit of a simple system to produce a continuous variable non-classical light source for long-distance quantum communication, we construct an all-fiber source of pulsed twin beams in the 1550 nm band by using a high gain fiber optical parametric amplifier. The intensity-difference noise of the twin beams is below the shot noise limit by 3.1 dB (10.4 dB after correction for losses). A detailed study reveals a number of limiting factors for noise reduction. Therefore, further noise reduction will be feasible once care is taken for these limiting factors.

Complete temporal mode analysis in pulse-pumped fiber-optical parametric amplifier for continuous variable entanglement generation

Mode matching plays an important role in measuring the continuous variable entanglement. For the signal and idler twin beams generated by a pulse pumped fiber optical parametric amplifier (FOPA), the spatial mode matching is automatically achieved in single mode fiber, but the temporal mode property is complicated because it is highly sensitive to the dispersion and the gain of the FOPA. We study the temporal mode structure and derive the input-output relation for each temporal mode of signal and idler beams after decomposing the joint spectral function of twin beams with the singular-value decomposition method. We analyze the measurement of the quadrature-amplitude entanglement, and find mode matching between the multi-mode twin beams and the local oscillators of homodyne detection systems is crucial to achieve a high degree of entanglement. The results show that the noise contributed by the temporal modes nonorthogonal to local oscillator may be much larger than the vacuum noise, so the mode mis-match can not be accounted for by merely introducing an effective loss. Our study will be useful for developing a source of high quality continuous variable entanglement by using the FOPA.

Quantum efficiency measurement of single-photon detectors using photon pairs generated in optical fibers

Using the correlated signal and idler photon pairs generated in a dispersion-shifted fiber by a pulsed pump, we measure the quantum efficiency of an InGaAs/InP avalanche photodiode-based single-photon detector. Since the collection efficiency of photon pairs is a key parameter to correctly deduce the quantum efficiency, we carefully characterize the collection efficiency by studying the correlation dependence of photon pairs on the spectra of pump, signal, and idler photons. This study allows us to obtain the quantum efficiency of the single-photon detector by using photon pairs with various kinds of bandwidth.

Multimode theory of pulsed-twin-beam generation using a high-gain fiber-optical parametric amplifier

Using the Bogoliubov transformation in multi-frequency modes to describe the evolution of the non-degenerate signal and idler twin beams, we theoretically investigate the quantum noise properties of the pulse pumped high gain fiber optical parametric amplifiers (FOPA). The results show that the noise figure of the FOPA is generally greater than the 3 dB quantum limit unless the joint spectral function is factorable and the spectrum of the input signal well matches the gain spectrum in the signal band. However, the intensity difference noise of the twin beams, which weakly depends on the joint spectral function, can be significantly less than the shot-noise limit when the temporal modes of the pump and the input signal are properly matched. Moreover, to closely resemble the real experimental condition, the quantum noise of twin beams generated from a broadband FOPA is numerically studied by taking the various kinds of experimental imperfections into account. Our study is not only useful for developing a compact fiber source of twin beams, but also helpful for understanding the quantum noise limit of a pulse pumped FOPA in the fiber communication system.

Generation of continuous variable quantum entanglement using a fiber optical parametric amplifier

We demonstrate the experimental generation of quadrature amplitude entanglement in the 1550 nm band by using a fiber optical parametric amplifier. The measured noise variances of the difference and sum of the quadrature amplitudes of the pulsed signal and idler twin beams fall below the shot noise limit by about 1 and 0.8 dB (4.2 and 3.6 dB after the correction for efficiency), respectively, showing that the inseparability criterion of Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen entanglement I<2 is satisfied. Our investigation reveals that the quality of the measured entanglement can be further improved by increasing the transmission efficiency of the twin beams and by optimizing the temporal mode matching of the two sets of homodyne detection systems.

Approaching single temporal mode operation in twin beams generated by pulse pumped high gain spontaneous four wave mixing.

By investigating the intensity correlation function, we study the spectral/temporal mode properties of twin beams generated by the pulse-pumped high gain spontaneous four wave mixing (SFWM) in optical fiber from both the theoretical and experimental aspects. The results show that the temporal property depends not only on the phase matching condition and the filters applied in the signal and idler fields, but also on the gain of SFWM. When the gain of SFWM is low, the spectral/temporal mode properties of the twin beams are determined by the phase matching condition and optical filtering and are usually of multi-mode nature, which leads to a value larger than 1 but distinctly smaller than 2 for the normalized intensity correlation function of individual signal/idler beam. However, when the gain of SFWM is very high, we demonstrate the normalized intensity correlation function of individual signal/idler beam approaches to 2, which is a signature of single temporal mode. This is so even if the frequencies of signal and idler fields are highly correlated so that the twin beams have multiple modes in low gain regime. We find that the reason for this behavior is the dominance of the fundamental mode over other higher order modes at high gain. Our investigation is useful for constructing high quality multi-mode squeezed and entangled states by using pulse-pumped spontaneous parametric down-conversion and SFWM.

Generation of photon pairs in dispersion shift fibers through spontaneous four wave mixing: Influence of self-phase modulation

Abstract Correlated signal and idler photon pairs with small detuning in the telecom band can be generated through spontaneous four-wave mixing in dispersion shift fibers. However, photons originated from other nonlinear processes in optical fibers, such as Raman scattering and self-phase modulation, may contaminate the photon pairs. It has been proved that photons produced by Raman scattering are the background noise of photon pairs. Here we show that photons induced by self-phase modulation of pump pulses are another origin of background noise. After studying the dependence of self-phase modulation induced photons in signal and idler bands, we demonstrate that the quantum correlation of photon pairs can be degraded by the self-phase modulation effect. The investigations are useful for characterizing and optimizing an all fiber source of photon pairs.

Generation and characterization of continuous variable quantum correlations using a fiber optical parametric amplifier

We generate the quadrature entanglement and the Gaussian discord using a fiber optical parametric amplifier, and investigate the factors influencing the values of inseparability I and discord D, respectively.

An all fiber source of pulsed twin beams in the telecom band

Stemming from the pursuit of a simple system to produce squeezed state for long distance continuous variable quantum communication, we present an all-fibre source of pulsed twin beams at 1550 nm band by using a high gain fiber optical parametric amplifier. The noise of intensity difference of the twin beams is below the shot noise limit by 3.1 dB (10.4 dB after correction for losses).

Charactering fiber-based source of heralded single photons

Based on the photon pairs generated from an optical fiber by a pulsed pump, we study the second-order coherence function, heralding efficiency, and temporal indistinguishability of the heralded single photons as functions of source parameters.