Abstract
We investigate the quantum entanglement of the three modes associated with the three-photon states obtained by triple-photon generation in a phase-matched third-order nonlinear optical interaction. Although the second order processes have been extensively dealt with, there is no direct analogy between the second and third-order mechanisms. We show for example the absence of quantum entanglement between the quadratures of the three modes in the case of spontaneous parametric triple-photon generation. However, we show that genuine triple-photon entanglement is obtained in the fully seeded case, and its efficiency increases with the seeding level.