Parametric generation of broadband biphotons in a periodic sequence of thin crystals

Collinear parametric scattering of light under type-II phase matching is considered in a periodic sequence of nonlinear cells made of BBO crystals. The possibilities of reducing the duration of the wave packets of biphotons and increasing their intensity under monochromatic pumping are studied. The analysis is based on the account of dispersion of the refractive indices using Sellmeier equations. The obtained results allow one to conclude that at an appropriate choice of the crystal thicknesses and the number of cells, it is possible to significantly increase the flux of broadband biphotons and obtain extremely short quantum packets. It is shown that for sufficiently small thicknesses of individual crystals (layers), this system exhibits a fine structure in the spectrum of biphotons: with an increase in the number of cells (layers) the broadband spectrum is divided into a number of narrow bands and the number of these bands increases. When use is made of a nonlinear BBO crystal, this method allows one to obtain ultrashort packets of biphotons with duration τ₀ ≈ 2 fs. Compared with a different method of generation of broadband biphotons, which is based on the use of quasi-phase-matched periodically poled crystals, the method studied in this paper does not necessitate the need for the phase modulation of a biphoton to be converted into the amplitude modulation.