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arXiv:2212.12261 · Optics Express

Demonstration of Hong-Ou-Mandel interference in an LNOI directional coupler

Silia Babel, Laura Bollmers, Marcello Massaro, Kai Luo, Michael Stefszky, Federico Pegoraro, Philip Held, Harald Herrmann, Christof Eigner, Benjamin Brecht, Laura Padberg, Christine Silberhorn

Published Jun 1, 2023• 12 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Interference between single photons is key for many quantum optics experiments and applications in quantum technologies, such as quantum communication or computation. It is advantageous to operate the systems at telecommunication wavelengths and to integrate the setups for these applications in order to improve stability, compactness and scalability. A new promising material platform for integrated quantum optics is lithium niobate on insulator (LNOI). Here, we realise Hong-Ou-Mandel (HOM) interference between telecom photons from an engineered parametric down-conversion source in an LNOI directional coupler. The coupler has been designed and fabricated in house and provides close to perfect balanced beam splitting. We obtain a raw HOM visibility of (93.5 ± 0.7) %, limited mainly by the source performance and in good agreement with off-chip measurements. This lays the foundation for more sophisticated quantum experiments in LNOI.

DOI
10.1364/oe.484126

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Interference between single photons is key for many quantum optics experiments and applications in quantum technologies, such as quantum communication or computation. It is advantageous to operate the systems at telecommunication wavelengths and to integrate the setups for these applications in order to improve stability, compactness and scalability. A new promising material platform for integrated quantum optics is lithium niobate on insulator (LNOI). Here, we realise Hong-Ou-Mandel (HOM) interference between telecom photons from an engineered parametric down-conversion source in an LNOI directional coupler. The coupler has been designed and fabricated in house and provides close to perfect balanced beam splitting. We obtain a raw HOM visibility of (93.5 ± 0.7) %, limited mainly by the source performance and in good agreement with off-chip measurements. This lays the foundation for more sophisticated quantum experiments in LNOI.
Integrated quantum photonic technologies require scalable devices with high-visibility quantum interference. Recent studies have demonstrated that lithium niobate on insulator enables efficient nonlinear interactions, via quasi-phase matching in periodically poled lithium niobate (PPLN) waveguides. However, the on-chip control of two-photon interference utilizing path entanglement remains limited. In this study, we demonstrate on-chip generation of single-photon sources via quantum interference using path-entangled N00N states in two ways. Using the basic structure of a reverse Hong–Ou–Mandel (RHOM) configuration, we directly observe high on-chip visibility of quantum interference. We achieve a visibility of 97.7% ± 1.1% using a dual-PPLN waveguide as the basic RHOM configuration. To improve the compactness, efficiency, and stability of on-chip operation, we further incorporate a PPLN ring resonator with a Sagnac loop. This allows counter-propagating paths to share a single periodically poled waveguide, achieving a visibility of 84.4% ± 1.6%. These results demonstrate that lithium niobate on insulator (LNOI)-based quantum photonic systems provide a robust foundation for the development of future integrated quantum technologies.
Generating and interfering nonclassical states of light is fundamental to optical quantum information science and technology. Quantum photonic integrated circuits provide one pathway towards scalability by combining nonlinear sources of nonclassical light and programmable circuits in centimeter-scale devices. The key requirements for quantum applications include efficient generation of indistinguishable photon-pairs and high-visibility programmable quantum interference. Here, we demonstrate a lithium niobate-on-insulator (LNOI) integrated photonic circuit that generates a two-photon path-entangled state, and a programmable interferometer for quantum interference. We generate entangled photons with ∼2.3×10^{8} pairs/s/mW brightness and perform quantum interference experiments on the chip with 96.8±3.6% visibility. LNOI is an emerging photonics technology that has revolutionized high-speed modulators and efficient frequency conversion. Our results provide a path towards large-scale integrated quantum photonics including efficient photon-pair generation and programmable circuits for applications such as boson sampling and quantum communications.
Abstract Since its initial discovery, Hong–Ou–Mandel (HOM) interference has been a key tool in quantum-optical experiments, being at the basis of several quantum technology applications as well as being a relevant characterisation method for the quality of single photon sources. In the context of quantum interferometry, further applications can be enabled by improving the capability of tailoring such effect. Here, we report a proof-of-principle experiment on a novel HOM control approach, based on spectrally shaping photons generated by parametric down conversion sources. By means of a pulse shaper operating on the pump beam in the Fourier plane, selected frequencies can be cut off from the down conversion process, therefore shaping the HOM interference profile. We finally discuss the obtained results towards employing the method for practical application in interferometry.
Abstract Programmable interferometric circuits are at the heart of integrated quantum photonic processors. While the lithium niobate-on-insulator platform has the potential to advance integrated quantum photonics due to its strong nonlinearity and tight mode confinement, the demonstration of reconfigurable two-photon interference has not yet been achieved. Here, we design, fabricate and characterize the building block of such interferometric networks in the form of a 2 × 2 Mach–Zehnder Interferometer. We use a thermo-optic phase shifter to achieve stable performance with a power consumption of P π = 44.4 mW and sub-microsecond switching times. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our device for quantum applications by measuring single-photon routing with up to 34 dB extinction ratio. We show Hong-Ou-Mandel interference with fully tunable visibilities reaching a maximum value of 97.4 ± 1.0 % . As part of large scale quantum photonic circuits, this building block will facilitate reconfigurable and tunable photonic processing units integrated alongside non-classical light sources.
We experimentally demonstrated the Hong-Ou-Mandel (HOM) interference between two photons after visible-to-telecommunication wavelength conversion. In the experiment, we prepared a heralded single photon by using spontaneous parametric down conversion (SPDC) and the other photon from a weak laser source at 780 nm. We converted the wavelength of both photons to the telecommunication wavelength of 1522 nm by using difference-frequency generation in a periodically poled lithium niobate, and then observed the HOM interference between the photons. The observed visibility is $0.76\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.12$ which clearly shows the nonclassical interference of the two photons. The high-visibility interference is an important step for fiber-based quantum communications of photons generated from visible-photon emitters.