Ultrabright narrow-band telecom two-photon source for long-distance quantum communication

Abstract

We demonstrate an ultrabright narrow-band two-photon source at the 1.5 -μm telecom wavelength for long-distance quantum communication. By utilizing a bow-tie cavity, we obtain a cavity enhancement factor of $4.06\times 10^4$. Our measurement of the second-order correlation function $G^{(2)}(\tau )$ reveals that the linewidth of $2.4$ MHz has been hitherto unachieved in the 1.5 -μm telecom band. This two-photon source is useful for obtaining a high absorption probability close to unity by quantum memories set inside quantum repeater nodes. Furthermore, to the best of our knowledge, the observed spectral brightness of $3.94\times 10^5$ pairs/(s$\cdot$MHz$\cdot$mW) is also the highest reported over all wavelengths.

11 pages, 4 figures, 2 tables