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  • Letter
  • Open Access

Observation of highly correlated ultrabright biphotons through increased atomic ensemble density in spontaneous four-wave mixing

Jiun-Shiuan Shiu1,2, Zi-Yu Liu1,2, Chin-Yao Cheng1,2, Yu-Chiao Huang1,2, Ite A. Yu3,4, Ying-Cheng Chen5, Chih-Sung Chuu3,4, Che-Ming Li2,6, Shiang-Yu Wang7 et al.

Yong-Fan Chen1,2,*

  • *Contact author: yfchen@mail.ncku.edu.tw
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Phys. Rev. Research 6, L032001 – Published 1 July, 2024

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.6.L032001

Abstract

The pairing ratio, a crucial metric assessing a biphoton source's ability to generate correlated photon pairs, remains underexplored despite theoretical predictions. This study presents experimental findings on the pairing ratio, utilizing a double-Λ spontaneous four-wave mixing biphoton source in cold atoms. At an optical depth (OD) of 20, we achieved an ultrahigh biphoton generation rate of up to 1.3×107 per second, with a successful pairing ratio of 61%. Increasing the OD to 120 significantly improved the pairing ratio to 89%, while maintaining a consistent biphoton generation rate. This achievement, marked by high generation rates and robust biphoton pairing, holds great promise for advancing efficiency in quantum communication and information processing. Additionally, in a scenario with a lower biphoton generation rate of 5.0×104 per second, we attained an impressive signal-to-background ratio of 241 for the biphoton wavepacket, surpassing the Cauchy-Schwarz criterion by approximately 1.5×104 times.

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Phys. Rev. Research 6, L032001– Published 1 July, 2024
  • Received 12 November 2023
  • Revised 7 February 2024
  • Accepted 13 June 2024
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

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