Two-photon Hong-Ou-Mandel interference and quantum entanglement between the frequency-converted idler photon and the signal photon

Abstract

Quantum frequency up-conversion is a cutting-edge technique that leverages the interaction between photons and quantum systems to shift the frequency of single photons from a lower frequency to a higher frequency. If the photon before up-conversion was one of the entangled pair, then it is important to understand how much entanglement is preserved after up-conversion. In this study, we present a theoretical analysis of the transformation of the time-dependent second-order quantum correlations in photon pairs and find the preservation of such correlations under fairly general conditions. We also analyze the two-photon Hong-Ou-Mandel interference between the frequency-converted idler photon and the signal photon. The visibility of the two-photon interference is sensitive to the magnitude of the frequency conversion, and it improves when the frequency separation between two photons goes down.