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arXiv:1705.05876 · Physical Review Applied

Fiber-Coupled Cavity-QED Source of Identical Single Photons

H. Snijders, J. A. Frey, J. Norman, V. P. Post, Arthur C. Gossard, J. E. Bowers, Martin P. van Exter, W. Löffler, D. Bouwmeester

Published Mar 28, 2018• 63 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

An ordered stream of single photons is fundamentally different from conventional light, which features bunches of random numbers of photons. Single-photon sources are essential for emerging technologies in $e.g.$ quantum cryptography and computing, but widespread use of bright quantum-dot sources has been thwarted by the need for complex optical setups. Thus the authors present a $f\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}i\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}b\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}e\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}r-i\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}n\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}t\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}e\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}g\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}r\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}a\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}t\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}e\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}d$ source of high-quality single photons. This marriage with conventional optical-fiber technology will not only promote broad use in quantum photonics, but also may enable fundamental studies in fields from microscopy to quantum metrology, by significantly simplifying experiments.

DOI
10.1103/physrevapplied.9.031002

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An ordered stream of single photons is fundamentally different from conventional light, which features bunches of random numbers of photons. Single-photon sources are essential for emerging technologies in e.g.e.g.e.g. quantum cryptography and computing, but widespread use of bright quantum-dot sources has been thwarted by the need for complex optical setups. Thus the authors present a $f\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}i\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}b\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}e\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}r-i\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}n\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}t\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}e\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}g\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}r\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}a\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}t\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}e\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}d$ source of high-quality single photons. This marriage with conventional optical-fiber technology will not only promote broad use in quantum photonics, but also may enable fundamental studies in fields from microscopy to quantum metrology, by significantly simplifying experiments.
High quality sources of single and identical (indistinguishable) photons are essential for photonic quantum information processing including boson sampling, cluster-state quantum computing, and optical quantum repeaters. To enable the use of several single photon sources in parallel and to allow the implementation of complex photonic networks, it is essential that the single photon source can be integrated easily and efficiently with optical fiber technology. Here we show a first all-solid-state InGaAs quantum dot based, integrated cavity-QED enhanced, single photon source. The source is operated by resonant optical pumping through an excitation fiber, and the single photons are collected in the fiber attached to the transmission channel of the cavity.
Abstract Photonic quantum technology is essentially based on the exchange of individual photons as information carriers. Therefore, the development of practical single-photon sources that emit single photons on-demand is a crucial contribution to advance this emerging technology and to promote its first real-world applications. In the last two decades, a large number of quantum light sources based on solid-state emitters have been developed on a laboratory scale. Corresponding structures today have almost ideal optical and quantum-optical properties. For practical applications, however, one crucial factor is usually missing, namely direct on-chip fiber coupling, which is essential, for example, for the direct integration of such quantum devices into fiber-based quantum networks. In fact, the development of fiber-coupled quantum light sources is still in its infancy, with very promising advances having been made in recent years. Against this background, this review article presents the current status of the development of fiber-coupled quantum light sources based on solid-state quantum emitters and discusses challenges, technological solutions and future prospects. Among other things, the numerical optimization of the fiber coupling efficiency, coupling methods, and important realizations of such quantum devices are presented and compared. Overall, this article provides an important overview of the state-of-the-art and the performance parameters of fiber-coupled quantum light sources that have been achieved so far. It is aimed equally at experts in the scientific field and at students and newcomers who want to get an overview of the current developments.
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Another article discusses the application of a nitrogen-vacancy-based single-photon source to an experimental demonstration of quantum key distribution in open air. Photodetection performs a critical role in assessing single-photon sources as well as heralding the arrival of a single photon based on detecting a correlated partner, and this issue presents the latest results on single-photon counting with a superconducting niobium nitride hot-electron bolometer. Another article provides a detailed study of how to characterize single-photon sources via intensity noise analyses. Photodetection is also important for post-selection-based processing for non-deterministic quantum information tasks, and this issue presents an analysis of photodetection and post-selection used in another way: enhancing the efficiency of single-photon sources by interferometry, photodetection and post-selection. New Journal of Physics appreciates the rapid pace of development in the area of single photons on demand. This Focus Issue presents the latest developments and also points to a bright future with better photon sources. Focus on Single Photons on Demand Contents Photon statistics characterization of a single-photon source R Alleaume, F Treussart, J-M Courty and J-F Roch Photon statistics of a non-stationary periodically driven single-photon source M Hennrich, T Legero, A Kuhn and G Rempe On the measurement of two-photon single-mode coupling efficiency in parametric down-conversion photon sources S Castelletto, I P Degiovanni, A Migdall and M Ware Single-photon sources based on single molecules in solids W E Moerner Single-photon generation with InAs quantum dots Charles Santori, David Fattal, Jelena Vuckovic, Glenn S Solomon and Yoshihisa Yamamoto Visible single-photon generation from semiconductor quantum dots Thomas Aichele, Valery Zwiller and Oliver Benson Enhanced correlated photon pair emission from a pillar microcavity M Benyoucef, S M Ulrich, P Michler, J Wiersig, F Jahnke and A Forchel Experimental open-air quantum key distribution with a single-photon source R Alleaume, F Treussart, G Messin, Y Dumeige, J-F Roch, A Beveratos, R Brouri-Tualle, J-P Poizat and P Grangier Post-processing with linear optics for improving the quality of single-photon sources Dominic W Berry, Stefan Scheel, Casey R Myers, Barry C Sanders, Peter L Knight and Raymond Laflamme A single-photon source based on a single Ca+ ion Christian Maurer, Christoph Becher, Carlos Russo, Jurgen Eschner and Rainer Blatt A calcium ion in a cavity as a controlled single-photon source M Keller, B Lange, K Hayasaka, W Lange and H Walther Quantum optics with single quantum dot devices Valery Zwiller, Thomas Aichele and Oliver Benson The creation and detection of arbitrary photon number states using cavity QED Benjamin T H Varcoe, Simon Brattke and Herbert Walther Stable single-photon source in the near infrared T Gaebel, I Popa, A Gruber, M Domhan, F Jelezko and J Wrachtrup Colloidal CdSe/ZnS quantum dots as single-photon sources X Brokmann, G Messin, P Desbiolles, E Giacobino, M Dahan and J P Hermier Towards a periodic deterministic source of arbitrary single-photon states Evan Jeffrey, Nicholas A Peters and Paul G Kwiat Fabrication of a superconducting niobium nitride hot electron bolometer for single-photon counting R Romestain, B Delaet, P Renaud-Goud, I Wang, C Jorel, J-C Villegier and J-Ph Poizat High-quality asynchronous heralded single-photon source at telecom wavelength Sylvain Fasel, Olivier Alibart, Sebastien Tanzilli, Pascal Baldi, Alexios Beveratos, Nicolas Gisin and Hugo Zbinden Philippe Grangier, Institut d'Optique Theorique et Appliquee, Orsay, France Barry Sanders, University of Calgary, Canada Jelena Vuckovic, Stanford University, CA, USA
In the field of quantum communication and quantum cryptography, the need for bright non-classical light sources remains a key requirement. Semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) have proven to be excellent candidates also being able to emit single-photons in the much sought after telecom bands. To overcome the high refractive index contrast between the semiconductor matrix and air, a main approach is to use cavity quantum electrodynamics (cQED). In this regard, circular Bragg gratings have achieved excellent results in the NIR regime [1] [2] . Using the existing fiber network, especially single-photons in the telecom O-band are favorable not only because of zero wave-packet dispersion but also for wavelength division multiplexing with classical communication signals in the telecom C-band.