In this short review some essentials concerning creation and testing of nonclassically correlated photons (biphotons) are given. In the introduction we remind the role which the experimentally produced entangled states have been playing for the foundations of the quantum physics, by witnessing against the model of local hidden variables. The well established sources of biphotons are based on spontaneous parametric down conversion in nonlinear crystals. A popular source with two BBO crystals is described, which generates pairs of photons nearly maximally entangled in polarization. Crystalbased sources rely on intrinsically broadband transitions, therefore thus produced biphotons are also broadband. Additional efforts (like applying optical cavities) are needed to reach narrowband biphotons which would comply with the requirements of some implementations in the quantum communication science. The topical issue of our article is a review of another, more recent approaches based on narrowband transitions between levels in cold atoms. Such method provides naturally narrowband biphotons. First, the principles are given of an atomic source of nonclassically paired photons, which is operated in a pulsed write-read mode. Such source is based on two separated in time Raman transitions triggered successively in two Λ-schemes. Next, cw-mode sources based (mainly) on spontaneous four wave mixing process (SFWM) are presented in a generic four-level scheme. Some underlying physics is sketched and profiles of biphoton correlation functions in the time domain are explained. Among other presented SFWM sources, one proves in testing high degree entanglement of generated biphotons, both in time-frequency and polarization (hyperentanglement).

Date Published: 8 January 2015
PDF: 15 pages
Proc. SPIE 9447, 18th International School on Quantum Electronics: Laser Physics and Applications, 944705 (8 January 2015); doi: 10.1117/12.2179505

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9447:
18th International School on Quantum Electronics: Laser Physics and Applications
Tanja Dreischuh; Sanka Gateva; Alexandros Serafetinides, Editor(s)