Compact source of polarization-entangled photon pairs.

We present a compact source of polarization-entangled photon pairs at a wavelength of 805 nm using a violet single-mode laser diode as the pump source of type-II spontaneous parametric down-conversion. The source exhibits entanglement and pair-rate comparable to conventional systems utilizing large frame ion lasers thus significantly increases the practicality of novel quantum information or quantum metrology applications.