Experimental entangled photon pair generation using crystals with parallel optical axes

We present an optical design where polarization-entangled photon pairs are generated within two $\beta$-Barium Borate crystals whose optical axes are parallel. This design increases the spatial mode overlap of the emitted photon pairs enhancing single mode collection without the need for additional spatial walk-off compensators. The observed photon pair rate is at least 65000 pairs/s/mW with a quantum state fidelity of 99.53$\pm$0.22% when pumped with an elliptical spatial profile.