Demonstration of a polarization-entangled photon-pair source based on phase-modulated PPLN

We develop and demonstrate a source of polarization-entangled photon pairs using spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) in domain-engineered, periodically poled lithium niobate (PPLN) at telecom wavelengths. Pumped at 775 nm, this domain-engineered type-II SPDC source produces non-degenerate signal and idler pairs at 1530 nm and 1569 nm. Because of birefringence, the photon pair with horizontally polarized signal and vertically polarized idler has a different phasematching condition than the pair with vertically polarized signal and horizontally polarized idler. Using phase-modulation of the domain structure, we produced a crystal that can simultaneously generate both states in a distributed fashion throughout a single crystal. Performing SPDC using this aperiodically poled crystal, we observed polarization entanglement visibility above 93%. We compare the phase-modulated crystal to other aperiodic structures, including dual-periodically-poled and interlaced biperiodic structures.