Waveguide-based OPO source of entangled photon pairs

In this paper, we present a compact source of narrow-band energy–time-entangled photon pairs in the telecom regime based on a Ti-indiffused periodically poled lithium niobate (PPLN) waveguide resonator, i.e. a waveguide with end-face dielectric multi-layer mirrors. This is a monolithic doubly resonant optical parametric oscillator (OPO) far below threshold, which generates photon pairs by spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) at around 1560 nm with a 117 MHz (0.91 pm)-bandwidth. A coherence time of 2.7 ns is estimated by a time correlation measurement and a high quality of the entangled states is confirmed by a Bell-type experiment. Since highly coherent energy–time-entangled photon pairs in the telecom regime are suitable for long distance transmission and manipulation, this source is well suited to the requirements of quantum communication.