Effects of Higher-Order Dispersion on Photon-Pair Generation by Four-Wave Mixing

We present analytical results revealing the impact of higher-order dispersion on four-wave mixing in quantum applications. We derive fundamental relations between input and output modes in dispersive four-wave mixing processes and apply the theory to photon-pair generation. We analyze specific examples of four-wave-mixing configurations and find that, in some cases, spectral correlations are severely affected by dispersion while other cases are strongly unaffected. For the considered examples, we derive analytic conditions for dispersion cancellation, resulting in highly factorable two-photon states.