Spectral properties of entangled photons generated via type-I frequency-nondegenerate spontaneous parametric down-conversion

Abstract

Spectral properties of entangled photons generated via type-I frequency-nondegenerate spontaneous parametric down-conversion are studied theoretically and experimentally. For monochromatic pumping, the joint spectral intensity function for the photon pair is found to be symmetric even though each photon has a different central wavelength. The single-photon (first-order) interference shows the familiar triangular interferogram, usually associated with the cw-pumped frequency-degenerate type-II spontaneous parametric down-conversion. For broadband (ultrafast) pumping, on the other hand, the joint spectral intensity function is shown to be asymmetric, similar to the case of ultrafast-pumped frequency-degenerate type-II spontaneous parametric down-conversion. The spectral studies reported here are expected to play an important role in developing ultrabright two-color entangled photon sources.