Implementing two-photon interference in the frequency domain with electro-optic phase modulators
Laurent Olislager, I. Mbodji, Erik Woodhead, Johann Cussey, Luca Furfaro, Philippe Emplit, Serge Massar, Kien Phan Huy, Jean-Marc Mérolla · New Journal of Physics · 2012
Frequency-entangled photons can be readily produced using parametric down-conversion. We have recently shown how such entanglement could be manipulated and measured using electro-optic phase modulators and narrow-band frequency filters, thereby leading to two-photon interference patterns in the frequency domain. Here we introduce new theoretical and experimental developments showing that this method is potentially a competitive platform for the realization of quantum communication protocols in standard telecommunication fibres. We derive a simple theoretical expression for the coincidence probabilities and use it to optimize a Bell inequality. Furthermore, we establish an equivalence between the entangled-photon scheme and a classical interference scheme. Our measurements of two-photon interference in the frequency domain yield raw visibilities in excess of 99%. We use our high-quality setup to experimentally validate the theoretical predictions, and in particular we report a violation of the CH74 inequality by more than 18 standard deviations.