Entangling entanglement: coupling frequency and polarization of biphotons on demand

Abstract: Quantum information is often carried in the frequency and polarization degrees of freedom (DoFs) in single photons and entangled photons. We demonstrate a new approach to couple and decouple the frequency and polarization DoFs of broadband biphotons. Our approach is based on a common-path nonlinear interferometer (CP-NLI) with a linear dispersive medium and a polarization controller sandwiched in between two nonlinear media that generate the interfering biphotons. By adjusting the polarization controller, we can effectively manipulate the two DoFs. When the two DoFs are decoupled, maximally polarization-entangled biphotons are observed in the polarization DoF, while interference fringes are observed in the spectral intensity of the biphotons. When the two DoFs are coupled, however, interference fringes disappear from the spectral intensity and instead appear in the degree of polarization entanglement. The degree of polarization entanglement quantified by concurrence in principle can vary from 0 to 1 depending on the signal and idler photon frequencies. Our approach offers a convenient means of tuning the polarization entanglement and can be employed for arbitrary biphoton polarization state generation, with applications in quantum information processing and the study of fundamental physics.