We theoretically investigate the preparation of mid-infrared (MIR) spectrally-uncorrelated biphotons from a spontaneous parametric down-conversion process using doped LN crystals, including MgO doped LN, ZnO doped LN, and In2O3 doped ZnLN with doping ratio from 0 to 7 mol%. The tilt angle of the phase-matching function and the corresponding poling period are calculated under type-II, type-I, and type-0 phase-matching conditions. We also calculate the thermal properties of the doped LN crystals and their performance in Hong-Ou-Mandel interference. It is found that the doping ratio has a substantial impact on the group-velocity-matching (GVM) wavelengths. Especially, the GVM2 wavelength of co-doped InZnLN crystal has a tunable range of 678.7 nm, which is much broader than the tunable range of less than 100 nm achieved by the conventional method of adjusting the temperature. It can be concluded that the doping ratio can be utilized as a degree of freedom to manipulate the biphoton state. The spectrally uncorrelated biphotons can be used to prepare pure single-photon source and entangled photon source, which may have promising applications for quantum-enhanced sensing, imaging, and communications at the MIR range.

Summary Spectrally intrinsically uncorrelated biphoton states generated from nonlinear crystals are very important but rare resources for quantum photonics and quantum information applications. Previously, such biphoton states were generated from several kinds of crystals, however, their wavelength ranges and nonlinear efficiencies were still limited for various applications. In order to explore new crystal for wider wavelength range and higher nonlinear efficiency, here we theoretically study the generation of spectrally uncorrelated biphoton states from 14 crystals in the “BBO family,” including BBO, CLBO, KABO, KBBF, RBBF, CBBF, BABF, BiBO, LBO, CBO, LRB4, LCB, YCOB, and GdCOB. They satisfy three kinds of group‐velocity matching condition from near‐infrared to telecom wavelengths. Furthermore, heralded single photons can be generated with a purity as high as 0.98, which is achieved without any narrow filtering. The indistinguishability of photons from independent sources is examined by the Hong‐Ou‐Mandel interference, which results in a visibility of 98% also without any further filtering, that is, photons from different heralded single‐photon sources are highly indistinguishable. Our study may provide single‐photon sources with good performance for quantum information processing at near‐infrared and telecom wavelengths.

We theoretically investigated spectrally uncorrelated biphotons generated in a counter-propagating spontaneous parametric downconversion (CP-SPDC) from periodically poled M T i O X O 4 ( M = K , Rb, Cs; X = P , As) crystals. By numerical calculation, it was found that the five crystals from the KTP family can be used to generate heralded single photons with high spectral purity and wide tunability. Under the type-0 phase-matching condition, the purity at 1550 nm was between 0.91 and 0.92, and the purity can be maintained over 0.90 from 1500 nm to 2000 nm wavelength. Under the type-II phase-matching condition, the purity at 1550 nm was 0.96, 0.97, 0.97, 0.98, and 0.98 for PPKTP, PPRTP, PPKTA, PPRTA, and PPCTA, respectively; furthermore, the purity can be kept over 0.96 for more than 600 nm wavelength range. We also simulated the Hong–Ou–Mandel interference between independent photon sources for PPRTP crystals at 1550 nm, and interference visibility was 92% (97%) under the type-0 (type-II) phase-matching condition. This study may provide spectrally pure narrowband single-photon sources for quantum memories and quantum networks at telecom wavelengths.

Quantum light sources in the mid‐infrared (MIR) band play an important role in many applications, such as quantum sensing, quantum imaging, and quantum communication. However, there is still a lack of high‐quality quantum light sources in the MIR band, such as the spectrally pure single‐photon source. In this work, the generation of a spectrally‐pure state in an optimized poled lithium niobate crystal using a metaheuristic algorithm is presented. In particular, the particle swarm optimization algorithm is adopted to optimize the duty cycle of the poling period of the lithium niobate crystal. With this approach, the spectral purity can be improved from 0.820 to 0.998 under the third group‐velocity‐matched condition, and the wavelength‐tunable range from 3.0 to 4.0 µm for the degenerate case and 3.0 to 3.7 µm for the nondegenerate case. This work paves the way for developing quantum photonic technologies at the MIR wavelength band.

We experimentally demonstrate a polarization-entangled photon source at 810 nm using a type-II phase-matched periodically poled potassium titanyl phosphate (PPKTP) crystal pumped by a low-cost, broadband laser diode with a central wavelength of 405 nm and a typical bandwidth of 0.53 nm. The PPKTP crystal is placed in a Sagnac loop to realize the compact size and high stability. The downconverted biphotons, the signal and the idler, have typical bandwidths of 5.57 and 7.32 nm. We prepare two Bell states | Ψ + ⟩ and | Ψ − ⟩ with the fidelities of 0.948 ± 0.004 and 0.963 ± 0.002 . In the polarization correlation measurement, the visibilities are all higher than 96.2%, and in the Bell inequality test, the S value can achieve 2.78 ± 0.01 . This high-quality and low-cost entangled photon source may have many practical applications in quantum information processing.