We present two types of photon sources designed for secure quantum communication, e.g. for quantum cryptography.
Both types are based on the creation of photon pairs by spontaneous parametric downconversion in nonlinear
crystals. The first is a heralded single photon source and the second is a source of polarization-entangled
photon pairs. For the heralded single photon source the detection of one of the photons of a downconversion pair
is used as a trigger to announce the presence of the other: the single photon. The source is characterized by a
highly sub-Poisson photon number statistics making it very suitable for use in quantum cryptography protocols
using single photonic qubits to create correlated information between a sender and a receiver. The entanglement
source instead uses the inherent non-classical correlations between entangled qubits. We also present a
hybrid-encoding where the sender uses polarization to encode information while the receiver uses time-bins.
Both sources create photons with highly non-degenerate wavelengths of 810 nm and 1550 nm, taking advantage
of the efficient detectors at near-infrared and the low transmission loss of optical fibers at telecommunication
wavelengths.
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