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arXiv:2004.07195 · Applied Physics Letters

Aperiodic electro-optic time lens for spectral manipulation of single-photon pulses

Filip Sośnicki, Michał Mikołajczyk, Ali Golestani, Michał Karpiński

Published Jun 8, 2020• 24 citations
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Abstract

Electro-optic time lenses are promising experimental components for photonic spectral-temporal processing of quantum information. We report a stable method to realize an electro-optic time lens, which relies on the amplification of an electronic response of a fast photodiode. The method does not require a repetitive clock and may be applied to aperiodic optical signals. We experimentally demonstrate the approach using single-photon pulses, and directly verify its aperiodicity. The approach will enable the construction of complex electro-optic temporal optical systems.

DOI
10.1063/5.0011077

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Electro-optic time lenses are promising experimental components for photonic spectral-temporal processing of quantum information. We report a stable method to realize an electro-optic time lens, which relies on the amplification of an electronic response of a fast photodiode. The method does not require a repetitive clock and may be applied to aperiodic optical signals. We experimentally demonstrate the approach using single-photon pulses, and directly verify its aperiodicity. The approach will enable the construction of complex electro-optic temporal optical systems.
Spectral-temporal manipulation of optical pulses has enabled numerous developments within a broad range of research topics, ranging from fundamental science to practical applications. Within quantum optics spectral-temporal degree of freedom of light offers a promising platform for integrated photonic quantum information processing. An important challenge in experimentally realizing spectral-temporal manipulation of quantum states of light is the need for highly efficient manipulation tools. In this context the intrinsically deterministic electro-optic methods show great promise for quantum applications. We experimentally demonstrate application of electro-optic platform for spectral-temporal manipulation of ultrashort pulsed quantum light. Using techniques analogous to serrodyne frequency shifting we show active spectral translation of few-picosecond single photon pulses by up to 0.5 THz. By employing an approach based on an electro-optic time lens we demonstrate up to 6-fold spectral compression of heralded single photon pulses with efficiency that enables us to significantly increase single photon flux through a narrow bandpass filter. We realize the required temporal phase manipulation by driving a lithium niobate waveguided electrooptic modulator with 33 dBm sinusoidal RF field at the frequency of either 10 GHz or 40 GHz. We use a phase lock loop to temporally lock the RF field to the 80 MHz repetition rate of approximately 1 ps long optical pulses. Heralded single photon wavepackets are generated by means of spontaneous parametric down-conversion in potassium dihydrogen phosphate (KDP) crystal, which enables preparation of spectrally pure single photon wavepackets without the need for spectral filtering. Spectral shifting is achieved by locking single-photon pulses to the linear slope of sinusoidal 40 GHz RF phase modulation. We verify the spectral shift by performing spectrally resolved heralded single photon counting, using frequency-to-time conversion by means of a highly dispersive chirped fiber Bragg grating. We verify the non-classicality of spectrally shifted single photons by measuring high-visibility Hong-Ou-Mandel interference using a reference single photon pulse. Spectral compression is based on the time lens principle, which requires locking optical pulses to approximately quadratic region of sinusoidal phase modulation. We utilize both 10 GHz and 40 GHz RF driving frequencies. Bandwidth compression is achieved by chirping the single photon pulse using an appropriate length of single-mode fibre and subsequently subjecting it to the action of the time lens. We verify spectral compression directly using the aforementioned spectrally-resolved heralded single photon counting method. We achieve 3-fold spectral compression of 2 nm bandwidth single photon pulses using 40 GHZ modulation frequency, and 6-fold spectral compression of 0.9 nm bandwidth single photon pulses using 10 GHz modulation frequency. Overall transmission of our set-up exceeding 30% enables practical usability of our spectral compression method which we demonstrate experimentally by showing an increased photon flux through a narrowband filter. Our results present an important contribution towards implementing quantum information processing in the spectral-temporal degree of freedom of a photon. In the context of quantum networks they present an enabling tool towards efficient photonic interfacing of different quantum information processing platforms.
Spectral-temporal shaping of quantum light has important applications in quantum communications and photonic quantum information processing. Electro-optic temporal lenses have recently been recognized as a tool for noise-free, efficient spectral bandwidth manipulation of single-photon wavepackets. However, standard electro-optic time lenses based on single-tone modulation exhibit, limited bandwidth modification factors due to material limitations on phase modulation amplitude. Here we numerically investigate the use of complex electro-optic temporal phase modulation patterns for bandwidth compression of light over multiple orders of magnitude and show the feasibility of their use in photonic interfaces for quantum network applications.
The ability to manipulate the spectro-temporal properties of single-photon pulses is a key enabler for quantum communication and high-dimensional quantum information processing [1]. For example, spectral bandwidth compression is crucial for interfacing quantum systems that operate at different spectral ranges [1]. Efficient bandwidth compression of single-photon pulses has been achieved using dispersive streching followed by an electro-optic sinudoidal time lens [1], [2]. An ideal time lens applies a time-dependent quadratic phase to an optical pulse, which linearly chirps the pulse [3]. However, in experimental realizations, deviations from the ideal quadratic phase leads to distortions in the output spectrum, known as temporal aberrations. Furthermore, discrepancies have been observed between theoretical predictions and experimental results for these systems [2], but never studies thoroughly. In this study, we propose a straightforward method to estimate the chirp rate introduced by a time lens implemented using an electro-optic phase modulator driven with a sinusoidal voltage. An optical pulse co-propagating with the sinusoidal drive acquires a sinusoidal phaseAcos⁡(ωmt)A \cos(\omega_{\mathrm{m}}t)Acos(ωm​t), hereAAAis the phase modulation amplitude andωm\omega_{\mathrm{m}}ωm​is the modulation frequency. When the pulse duration is shorter than the period of the driving signal, the extremum of the sinusoidal phase is approximately quadratic, effectively implementing a time lens.
A promising approach towards implementation of large-scale quantum information and communication protocols is a multifunctional photonic quantum information processing system, where a variety of distributed components, such as quantum memories, trapped ions, or photonic quantum gates are coherently interconnected via photonic links. These components may exhibit a vast range of spectro-temporal properties. A key incompatibility is spectral bandwidth mismatch. For example the characteristic bandwidths of photonic communication channels and nonlinear-optical single-photon sources are in the 100 GHz range, whereas typical bandwidths associated with trapped ions or media exhibiting strong single photon nonlinearity, such as Rydberg atoms, are in the sub-GHz regime, reaching single MHz values. Single-photon-level bandwidth conversion has been experimentally demonstrated by techniques based on the temporal lensing principle, but only between multi-GHz bandwidth optical pulses [1, 2]. Here we present a numerical study of an electro-optic time-lens-based technique enabling bandwidth conversion from the 100 GHz bandwidth region towards single MHz bandwidths. We discuss progress towards experimental implementation and possible realizations using alternative temporal lensing platforms, such as three and four wave mixing.