The nonclassical photon pair, generated via a parametric process, is naturally endowed with a specific form of frequency-time quantum correlations. Here, we report complete control of frequency-time quantum correlations of narrow-band biphotons generated via spontaneous four-wave mixing in a cold atomic ensemble. We have experimentally confirmed the generation of frequency-anticorrelated, frequency-correlated, and frequency-uncorrelated narrow-band biphoton states, as well as verifying the strong nonclassicality of the correlations. Our work opens up new possibilities for engineering narrow-band entangled photons for various quantum optical and quantum information applications.

We report an experimental demonstration of the nonclassical stationary light pulse (SLP) in a cold atomic ensemble. A single collective atomic excitation is created and heralded by detecting a Stokes photon in the spontaneous Raman scattering process. The heralded single atomic excitation is converted into a single stationary optical excitation or the single-photon SLP, whose effective group velocity is zero, effectively forming a trapped single-photon pulse within the cold atomic ensemble. The single-photon SLP is then released from the atomic ensemble as an anti-Stokes photon after a specified trapping time. The second-order correlation measurement between the Stokes and anti-Stokes photons reveals the nonclassical nature of the single-photon SLP. Our work paves the way toward quantum nonlinear optics without a cavity.

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