Efficient generation of correlated photon pairs in a microstructure fiber

We report efficient generation of correlated photon pairs through degenerate four-wave mixing in a microstructure fiber. With 735.7 nm pump pulses producing correlated signal (688.5 nm) and idler (789.8 nm) photons in a 1.8 m microstructure fiber, we detect photon pairs at a rate of 37.6 kHz with a coincidence/accidental contrast of 10:1 with Delta lambda=0.7 nm. This is the highest rate to our knowledge reported to date in a fiber-based photon source. The light source is highly nonclassical as defined by the Zou-Wang-Mandel inequality, which is violated by 1100 times the uncertainty. (c) 2005 Optical Society of America.