Abstract

We demonstrate a high-brightness source of pairs of indistinguishable photons based on a type-II phase-matched doubly-resonant optical parametric oscillator operated far below threshold. The cavityenhanced down-conversion output of a PPKTP crystal is coupled into two single-mode fibers with a mode coupling efficiency of 58%. The high degree of indistinguishability between the photons of a pair is demonstrated by a Hong-Ou-Mandel interference visibility of higher than 90% without any filtering at an instantaneous coincidence rate of 450 000 pairs/s per mW of pump power per nm of down-conversion bandwidth. For the degenerate spectral mode with a linewidth of 7 MHz at 795 nm a rate of 70 pairs/(s mW MHz) is estimated, increasing the spectral brightness for indistinguishable photons by two orders of magnitude compared to similar previous sources.

© 2008 Optical Society of America

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History
Original Manuscript: July 29, 2008
Manuscript Accepted: October 17, 2008
Revised Manuscript: October 2, 2008
Published: October 22, 2008

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Author Affiliations

F. Wolfgramm, A. Cerè, A. Predojević, M. W. Mitchell

ICFO - Institut de Ciencies Fotoniques

X. Xing, A. M. Steinberg

University of Toronto

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