Spectral Properties of Ultra-Broadband Entangled Photons Generated From Chirped-MgSLT Crystal Towards Monocycle Entanglement Generation

Compressing the temporal correlation of two photons to the monocycle regime (3.56 fs, center wavelength: 1064 nm) is expected to open up new perspectives in quantum metrology, allowing applications such as submicron quantum optical coherence tomography and novel nonlinear optical experiments. To achieve this, the two-photon state must essentially be ultra-broadband in the frequency domain and ultra-short in the time domain. Here, we report the successful generation of such ultra-broadband, frequency-correlated two-photon states via type-0, cw-pumped (532 nm) spontaneous parametric down conversion using four PPMgSLT crystals with different chirp rates of their poling periods. For the collinear condition, single-photon spectra are detected using a Si-CCD and an InGaAs photodiode array with a monochromator, while for a noncollinear condition, an NbN meander-type superconducting single photon detector (SNSPD) and an InP/GaAs photomultiplier tube (PMT) with a laser line Bragg tunable bandpass filter are used. The broadband sensitivity of the SNSPD and PMT in the near-infrared wavelength range enable singleshot observations with a maximum bandwidth of 820 nm among the four samples. Such spectra can in principle achieve a temporal correlation as short as 1.2 cycles (4.4 fs) with the use of appropriate phase compensation, which can be measured using the sum-frequency signal. We also discuss several detection strategies for measuring coincidence counts in the presence of wavelength-dependent optical elements as a step towards frequency correlation measurements.