Spectral polarization and spectral phase control of time-energy entangled photons

Abstract

We demonstrate a scheme to spectrally manipulate a collinear, continuous stream of time and energy entangled photons to generate beamlike, bandwidth-limited fluxes of polarization-entangled photons with nearly degenerate wavelengths. Utilizing an ultrashort-pulse shaper to control the spectral phase and polarization of the photon pairs, we tailor the shape of the Hong-Ou-Mandel interference pattern, demonstrating the rules that govern the dependence of this interference pattern on the spectral phases of the photons. We then use the pulse shaper to generate all four polarization Bell states. The singlet state generated by this scheme forms a very robust decoherence-free subspace, extremely suitable for long-distance fiber-optics-based quantum communication.