Smith, Devin Hugh2009-01-262009-01-262009-01-262009http://hdl.handle.net/10012/4259This thesis describes the design, development, and implementation of a pulsed source of polarization-entangled photons using spontaneous parametric down-conversion in a Sagnac interferometer. A tangle of 0.9286 ± 0.0015, fidelity to the state (|10〉 + |01〉)/√2 of 0.9798 ± 0.0004 and a brightness of 597 pairs/s/mW were demonstrated. Spontaneous parametric down-conversion is a nonlinear optical process in which one photon is split into two lower-frequency photons while conserving momentum and energy, in this experiment nearly degenerate photons are produced. These photons are then interfered at the output beamsplitter of the interferometer, exchanging path entanglement for polarization entanglement and generating the desired polarization-entangled photon pairs.enentanglementquantum opticssagnac interferometerultrafastphoton pairpolarization entanglementMaster ThesisPhysics