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arXiv:2010.04242 · Physical Review Letters

Ultrabright Quantum Photon Sources on Chip

Zhaohui Ma, Jia‐Yang Chen, Zhan Li, Chao Tang, Yong Meng Sua, Heng Fan, Yu‐Ping Huang

Published Dec 22, 2020• 190 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Quantum photon sources of high rate, brightness, and purity are increasingly desirable as quantum information systems are quickly scaled up and applied to many fields. Using a periodically poled lithium niobate microresonator on chip, we demonstrate photon-pair generation at high rates of 8.5 and 36.3 MHz using only 3.4 and 13.4 μW pump power, respectively, marking orders of magnitude improvement over the state of the art, across all material platforms. These results constitute the first direct measurement of the device's giant single photon nonlinearity. The measured coincidence to accidental ratio is well above 100 at those high rates and reaches 14682±4427 at a lower pump power. The same chip enables heralded single-photon generation at tens of megahertz rates, each with low autocorrelation g_{H}^{(2)}(0)=0.008 and 0.097 for the microwatt pumps, which marks a new milestone. Such distinct performance, facilitated by the chip device's noiseless and giant optical nonlinearity, will contribute to the forthcoming pervasive adoption of quantum optical information technologies.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.125.263602

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Quantum photon sources of high rate, brightness, and purity are increasingly desirable as quantum information systems are quickly scaled up and applied to many fields. Using a periodically poled lithium niobate microresonator on chip, we demonstrate photon-pair generation at high rates of 8.5 and 36.3 MHz using only 3.4 and 13.4 μW pump power, respectively, marking orders of magnitude improvement over the state of the art, across all material platforms. These results constitute the first direct measurement of the device's giant single photon nonlinearity. The measured coincidence to accidental ratio is well above 100 at those high rates and reaches 14682±4427 at a lower pump power. The same chip enables heralded single-photon generation at tens of megahertz rates, each with low autocorrelation g_{H}^{(2)}(0)=0.008 and 0.097 for the microwatt pumps, which marks a new milestone. Such distinct performance, facilitated by the chip device's noiseless and giant optical nonlinearity, will contribute to the forthcoming pervasive adoption of quantum optical information technologies.
Abstract On-chip bright quantum sources with multiplexing ability are extremely high in demand for the integrated quantum networks with unprecedented scalability and complexity. Here, we demonstrate an ultrabright and broadband biphoton quantum source generated in a lithium niobate microresonator system. Without introducing the conventional domain poling, the on-chip microdisk produces entangled photon pairs covering a broad bandwidth promised by natural phase matching in spontaneous parametric down conversion. Experimentally, the multiplexed photon pairs are characterized by 30 nm bandwidth limited by the filtering system, which can be furthered enlarged. Meanwhile, the generation rate reaches 5.13 MHz/μW with a coincidence-to- accidental ratio up to 804. Besides, the quantum source manifests the prominent purity with heralded single photon correlation g(2)H(0)=0.0098±0.0021 and energy-time entanglement with excellent interference visibility of 96.5%±1.9%.
On-chip bright quantum sources with multiplexing ability are extremely high in demand for the integrated quantum networks with unprecedented scalability and complexity. Here, we demonstrate an ultrabright and broadband biphoton quantum source generated in a lithium niobate microresonator system.Without introducing the conventional domain poling, the on-chip microdisk produces entangled photon pairs covering a broad bandwidth promised by natural phase matching in spontaneous parametric down conversion.Experimentally, the multiplexed photon pairs are characterized by 30 nm30\ \rm nm30 nm bandwidth limited by the filtering system, which can be furthered enlarged.Meanwhile, the generation rate reaches $5.13\ {\rm MHz}/\upmu \rm W$ with a coincidence-to-accidental ratio up to 804804804.Besides, the quantum source manifests the prominent purity with heralded single photon correlation gH(2)(0)=0.0098±0.0021g_H^{(2)}(0)=0.0098\pm0.0021gH(2)​(0)=0.0098±0.0021 and energy-time entanglement with excellent interference visibility of 96.5%±1.9%96.5\%\pm1.9\%96.5%±1.9%. Such quantum sources at the telecommunication band pave the way for high-dimensional entanglement and future integrated quantum information systems.
Abstract The conversion and interaction between quantum signals at a single-photon level are essential for scalable quantum photonic information technology. Using a fully-optimized, periodically-poled lithium niobate microring, we demonstrate ultra-efficient sum-frequency generation on chip. The external quantum efficiency reaches (65±3)% with only (104±4) uW pump power, improving the state-of-the-art by over one order of magnitude. At the peak conversion, 3×10-5 noise photon is created during the cavity lifetime, which meets the requirement of quantum applications using single-photon pulses. Using pump and signal in single-photon coherent states, we directly measure the conversion probability produced by a single pump photon to be 10-5---breaking the record by 100 times---and the photon-photon coupling strength to be 9.1 MHz. Our results mark a new milestone toward quantum nonlinear optics at the ultimate single photon limit, creating new background in highly integrated photonics and quantum optical computing.
We report on multiphoton statistics of correlated twin beams produced in a periodic poled microring resonator on thin-film lithium niobate. Owing to high-cavity confinement and near-perfect quasi-phase-matching, the photon pairs are produced efficiently in single modes at rates reaching 27 MHz per $\text{\ensuremath{\mu}}\mathrm{W}$ pump power. By using a pump laser whose pulse-width impedance matches with the cavity, those photons are further created in single longitudinal modes with purity reaching 99%, without relying on later-on filtering. With a dual-channel photon-number-resolving detection system, we obtain directly the joint detection probabilities of multiphoton states up to three photons, with high coincidence to accidental contrast for each. Used as a single-photon source, it gives heralded gH(2)(0){g}_{H}^{(2)}(0)gH(2)​(0) around 0.04 at a single-photon rate of 650 kHz on chip. The findings of our research highlight the potential of this nanophotonic platform as a promising platform for generating nonclassical, few-photon states with ideal indistinguishability, for fundamental quantum optics studies and information applications.
We report on multi-photon statistics of correlated twin beams produced in a periodic poled micro-ring resonator on thin-film lithium niobate. Owing to high cavity confinement and near perfect quasi-phase matching, the photons pairs are produced efficiently in single modes at rates reaching 27 MHz per μμμW pump power. By using a pump laser whose pulse width impedance matches with the cavity, those photons are further created in single longitudinal modes with purity reaching 99\%, without relying on later-on filtering. With a dual-channel photon-number resolving detection system, we obtain directly the joint detection probabilities of multi-photon states up to three photons, with high coincidence to accidental contrast for each. Used as a single photon source, it gives heralded gH(2)(0)g_H^{(2)}(0)gH(2)​(0) around 0.04 at a single photon rate of 650 kHz on chip. The findings of our research highlight the potential of this nanophotonic platform as a promising platform for generating non-classical, few-photon states with ideal indistinguishability, for fundamental quantum optics studies and information applications.
Quantum-photonic chips, which integrate quantum light sources alongside active and passive optical elements, as well as single-photon detectors, show great potential for photonic quantum information processing and quantum technology. Mature semiconductor nanofabrication processes allow for scaling such photonic integrated circuits to on-chip networks of increasing complexity. Second-order nonlinear materials are the method of choice for generating photonic quantum states in the overwhelming majority of linear optic experiments using bulk components, but integration with waveguide circuitry on a nanophotonic chip proved to be challenging. Here, we demonstrate such an on-chip parametric down-conversion source of photon pairs based on second-order nonlinearity in an aluminum-nitride microring resonator. We show the potential of our source for quantum information processing by measuring the high visibility anti-bunching of heralded single photons with nearly ideal state purity. Our down-conversion source yields measured coincidence rates of 80 Hz, which implies MHz generation rates of correlated photon pairs. Low noise performance is demonstrated by measuring high coincidence-to-accidental ratios. The generated photon pairs are spectrally far separated from the pump field, providing great potential for realizing sufficient on-chip filtering and monolithic integration of quantum light sources, waveguide circuits and single-photon detectors. A chip-based source of photon pairs for applications in quantum information processing has been built by a team of scientists in the US. Xiang Guo and co-workers from Yale University built the quantum light source from an aluminum nitride microring resonator. The strong second-order nonlinearity of the aluminum nitride yields efficient parametric down-conversion. This allows 775-nm-wavelength pump photons to be converted into a pair of entangled photons in the telecommunications window of 1550 nm. Tests indicated that the heralded photons generated by the microring source are anti-bunched and have high visibility and a high purity of state, indicating that they are highly suitable for use in quantum optics experiments. In principle, the on-chip source is compatible with megahertz generation rates and large-scale manufacture of integrated optical circuits.