Quantum technologies have surpassed classical systems by leveraging the unique properties of superposition and entanglement in photons and matter. Recent advancements in integrated quantum photonics, especially in silicon-based and lithium niobate platforms, are pushing the technology toward greater scalability and functionality. Silicon circuits have progressed from centimeter-scale, dual-photon systems to millimeter-scale, high-density devices that integrate thousands of components, enabling sophisticated programmable manipulation of multi-photon states. Meanwhile, lithium niobate, thanks to its wide optical transmission window, outstanding nonlinear and electro-optic coefficients, and chemical stability, has emerged as an optimal substrate for fully integrated photonic quantum chips. Devices made from this material exhibit high efficiency in in generating, manipulating, converting, storing, and detecting photon states, thereby establishing a basis for deterministic multi-photon generation and single-photon quantum interactions, as well as comprehensive frequency-state control. This review explores the development of integrated photonic quantum technologies based on both silicon and lithium niobate, highlighting invaluable insights gained from silicon-based systems that can assist the scaling of lithium niobate technologies. It examines the functional integration mechanisms of lithium niobate in electro-optic tuning and nonlinear energy conversion, showcasing its transformative impact throughout the photonic quantum computing process. Looking ahead, we speculate on the developmental pathways for lithium niobate platforms and their potential to revolutionize areas such as quantum communication, complex system simulation, quantum sampling, and optical quantum computing paradigms.
Quantum technologies have surpassed classical systems by leveraging the unique properties of superposition and entanglement in photons and matter. Recent advancements in integrated quantum photonics, especially in silicon-based and lithium niobate platforms, are pushing the technology toward greater scalability and functionality. Silicon circuits have progressed from centimeter-scale, dual-photon systems to millimeter-scale, high-density devices that integrate thousands of components, enabling sophisticated programmable manipulation of multi-photon states. Meanwhile, lithium niobate, thanks to its wide optical transmission window, outstanding nonlinear and electro-optic coefficients, and chemical stability, has emerged as an optimal substrate for fully integrated photonic quantum chips. Devices made from this material exhibit high efficiency in in generating, manipulating, converting, storing, and detecting photon states, thereby establishing a basis for deterministic multi-photon generation and single-photon quantum interactions, as well as comprehensive frequency-state control. This review explores the development of integrated photonic quantum technologies based on both silicon and lithium niobate, highlighting invaluable insights gained from silicon-based systems that can assist the scaling of lithium niobate technologies. It examines the functional integration mechanisms of lithium niobate in electro-optic tuning and nonlinear energy conversion, showcasing its transformative impact throughout the photonic quantum computing process. Looking ahead, we speculate on the developmental pathways for lithium niobate platforms and their potential to revolutionize areas such as quantum communication, complex system simulation, quantum sampling, and optical quantum computing paradigms.
Integrated thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN) photonics has emerged as a powerful platform for quantum information science, offering its outstanding nonlinear, electro-optic (EO), and integration capabilities. In this review, we present the latest advances in TFLN-based integrated photonics tailored to quantum technologies. We first explore state-of-the-art quantum light sources realized in both straight waveguide and resonator configuration, including high-brightness photon pair generations, squeezed light, and versatile entanglement schemes. Next, we detail progress in integrated photonic processors, with a focus on programmable interferometric networks, ultrafast EO modulators, and essential passive components for photonic qubit processing. We then address critical challenges in optical interfacing and detection technologies, discussing recent innovations in low-loss fiber-to-chip and grating coupler designs, as well as the integration of on-chip single photon detectors. This review provides a forward-looking perspective on scalable quantum photonic systems that could underpin future advances in quantum communication, computing, and sensing.
Quantum photonics has advanced rapidly and become a leading approach for developing a broad range of quantum technologies, including quantum communications, quantum information processing, quantum computing, and quantum sensing. Besides, the emerging photonic integrated circuits (PIC) technology has been widely used to implement versatile optical elements advantageous for different quantum applications. For example, PIC-based devices have functioned as building blocks, such as photonic qubit sources, linear optical circuits, modulators, and even single-photon detectors, for realizing highly integrated, large-scale quantum computing schemes. In such a powerful quantum photonic integrated circuits (QPIC) scheme, the creation, manipulation, and testing of quantum entanglement states from the generated qubits via a reconfigurable photonic circuitry are essential. Though the state-of-the-art PIC technology is established based on Si photonics due to its widely mature nanophotonic circuit (waveguide) fabrication technology supported by the existing immense semiconductor industry, Si-based PIC has limitations in implementing efficient and fast active elements that usually demand a quadratic nonlinearity. Lithium niobate (LN), renowned as “the silicon of photonics”, has long been a popular material widely used in integrated-optical and nonlinear-optical applications. A great variety of passive and active photonic elements have been realized in the LN platform. Recently, a novel material based on high-quality single-crystalline films of LN, known as thin-film LN on insulator (LNOI), has been developed and has soon drawn enormous attention for its greatly promising ability to realize nanoscale PIC/QPIC in this iconic optical material platform. In this presentation, we report our recent studies on several key LN PIC building blocks for developing novel quantum photonic sources and circuits, including highly integrated photonic-circuit periodically poled lithium niobate (PPLN) chips for photon-pair generation and manipulation, for high-dimensional frequency-entangled qudit production, for time-frequency grid-state generation, for continuous-variable squeezed vacuum state generation, and their potential applications to quantum computing/communication/sensing technology. Besides, a PP-LNOI electro-optic (EO) polarization mode converter (PMC) useful for demonstrating fast control of quantum polarization states and other LNOI circuit elements as QPIC building blocks will also be presented.
Integrated quantum photonic system has become a promising candidate for next-generation quantum optical system. Thanks to the scalability and strong light-matter interactions, such nanophotonic systems can realize compactness, large-scale integration, stability, and novel optical functionalities simultaneously. In this talk, I will introduce our experimental works in the fields of the integrated lithium niobate photonics. First, we demonstrate a set of nonlinear photon-pair generations for the nonlinear quantum photonic sources. Next, I will show our works on lithium-niobate integrated quantum photonic circuits for the application in quantum communications and variational quantum simulations.
Recent advancements in quantum photonics have driven significant progress in photonic quantum computing (PQC), addressing challenges in scalability, efficiency, and fault tolerance. Experimental efforts have focused on integrated photonic platforms utilizing materials such as silicon photonics and lithium niobate to enhance performance. Parameters like photon loss rates, coupling efficiencies, and fidelities have been pivotal, with state-of-the-art systems achieving coupling efficiencies above 90% and photon indistinguishability exceeding 99%. Quantum error correction schemes have reduced logical error rates to below 10−3, marking a step toward fault-tolerant PQC. Photon generation has also advanced with deterministic sources, such as quantum dots, achieving brightness levels exceeding 106 photon pairs/s/mW and time-bin encoding enabling scalable entanglement. Heralded single-photon sources now exhibit purities above 99%, driven by innovations in fabrication techniques. High-efficiency photon detectors, such as superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPDs), have demonstrated detection efficiencies exceeding 98%, dark count rates below 1 Hz, and timing jitters as low as 15 ps, ensuring precise photon counting and manipulation. Moreover, demonstrations of boson sampling with over 100 photons underscore the growing computational power of photonic systems, surpassing classical limits. The integration of machine learning has optimized photonic circuit design, while frequency multiplexing and time-bin encoding have increased system scalability. Together, these advances bridge the gap between theoretical potential and practical implementation, positioning PQC as a transformative technology for computing, communication, and quantum sensing.
Photonics is poised to play a unique role in quantum technology for computation, communications and sensing. Meanwhile, integrated photonic circuits-with their intrinsic phase stability and high-performance, nanoscale components-offer a route to scaling. However, each integrated platform has a unique set of advantages and pitfalls, which can limit their power. So far, the most advanced demonstrations of quantum photonic circuitry has been in silicon photonics. However, thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN) is emerging as a powerful platform with unique capabilities; advances in fabrication have yielded loss metrics competitive with any integrated photonics platform, while its large second-order nonlinearity provides efficient nonlinear processing and ultra-fast modulation. In this short review, we explore the prospects of dynamic quantum circuits-such as multiplexed photon sources and entanglement generation-on hybrid TFLN on silicon (TFLN/Si) photonics and argue that hybrid TFLN/Si photonics may have the capability to deliver the photonic quantum technology of tomorrow.
Photonics has proven to be a very attractive platform for quantum technologies, offering key features such as high-fidelity qubits and room-temperature signal processing. Advancements in integrated photonics are expected to further enhance these capabilities as the technology evolves from few-photon architectures to systems capable of generating and processing tens, possibly hundreds, of photons, marking critical progress toward scalable quantum information processing. Although each integrated platform has its own unique advantages and limitations, thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN) photonics has recently emerged as a strong contender thanks to its low-loss characteristics, large electro-optic and nonlinear coefficients, broad transparency window, and ultra-fast modulation capabilities. In this review, we examine the latest developments in TFLN quantum photonics and identify promising directions and challenges for future research in this field.