We provide a versatile plateform to investigate wave-particle duality. This photonic waveguide network implements quantum (wave) graphs as proposed in the seminal paper by Kottos \& Smilansky [PRL \textbf{85} 968 (2000)]. We experimentally demonstrated that the spectral statistics of a mixing (i.e. strongly chaotic) graph follows the predictions of random matrix theory, contrary to an ergodic (i.e. less chaotic) graph, in agreement with the Bohigas-Giannoni-Schmit conjecture [PRL \textbf{52} 1 (1984)]. This plateform also gives access to the wavefunction patterns, which are expected to verify the quantum ergodicity theorem.
We provide a versatile plateform to investigate wave-particle duality. This photonic waveguide network implements quantum (wave) graphs as proposed in the seminal paper by Kottos & Smilansky [PRL \textbf{85} 968 (2000)]. We experimentally demonstrated that the spectral statistics of a mixing (i.e. strongly chaotic) graph follows the predictions of random matrix theory, contrary to an ergodic (i.e. less chaotic) graph, in agreement with the Bohigas-Giannoni-Schmit conjecture [PRL \textbf{52} 1 (1984)]. This plateform also gives access to the wavefunction patterns, which are expected to verify the quantum ergodicity theorem.
The capability of realizing quantum photonics implementations on-chip will have a strong impact on several aspects of quantum computation and information processing. The implementation of large scale integrated quantum photonic technologies requires on-chip reconfigurable waveguide circuits as well as single-photon sources and detectors. Many successes have been made in recent years to demonstrate complex quantum circuits in many material platforms. Among all these platforms, the Silicon-on-Insulator (SOI) platform is outstanding as it is well developed for classical applications and therefore deploys a high component density, mature fabrication techniques and compatibility with the telecom regime and the complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technology. However, the lack of on-demand non-classical light sources, directly incorporated in silicon chips, forces the use of nonlinear processes to generate non-classical light states: the probabilistic nature of the emission process sets a limit in the maximally achievable experimental complexity. The use of on-demand sources will have a strong impact on the device’s scalability.
Silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafers have been developed for electronic integrated circuits, but are also one of the most promising platforms in photonic integrated circuits due to its low loss, high refractive index, ability to fast phase modulation, and well-developed fabrication technologies. With advantages to handle light with a small volume and high modulation speed, silicon photonics has been intensively investigated as the next generation platform of signal processing, interconnection, and communication devices. Recently, silicon photonics has been attracted great interests in quantum optics communities as optical quantum systems for linear optical quantum computing are achievable using silicon photonic components including beam splitters, phase modulators, and filters and the small footprint of a silicon photonic quantum system has unprecedented performances of high stability and scalability. Here we show our recent results on the fabrication of silicon photonic elements for quantum applications. We fabricated low-loss optical waveguides, efficient fiber-to-waveguide grating couplers, resonator-based optical filters, and tunable beam splitters and tested their performances. A micro-sized heater is attached on a Mach-Zehnder interferometer, showing stable operation as a slow phase modulator. In addition, phase modulators using plasma dispersion effects are under investigation. Finally, the quantum characteristics of photon pairs generated by spontaneous four-wave mixing in silicon waveguides are investigated. These results will be an essential cornerstone for the realization of quantum optical computing and quantum communication devices.
Silicon photonics is a dynamic research field of integrated optics. It allows to miniaturize numerous optical functionalities such as lasers, electro-optical modulators, routers, detectors, for telecom wavelengths, LIDAR, sensor, metrology or even spectroscopy, all while been able to propose large scale production high precision technologies. On another side, quantum optics suffers from difficulties to scale optical systems, requires extreme stability, perfect alignment, and many bulky optical elements, while solving these issues follows a natural path in integrated photonics. Development of integrated quantum photonics can thus open the door to cheap, powerful, and scalable systems for quantum cryptography, telecoms, and computation. In a significant way, quantum requirements are not the ones of classical circuits with respect to photonic components and circuits. The generation of quantum states indeed requires more than 100dB of pump laser rejection, while being able to manage ultra-low useful optical signals and get rid of on-chip optical noise. In this context, this thesis is dedicated to the study, dimension, realization, and characterization of silicon photonic components and circuits for quantum optics on a chip. The target goal is to generate entangled states in energy-time and manipulate them on chip. The qualification of the quantum properties is also explored to better understand the limitations of the silicon platform in the followed objectives. Another choice of this work is to stay in telecoms wavelength and aligned with the standard channels (ITU grid), to only use off-the-shelf components, all while been CMOS compatible and compliant with standard fabrication process, this to allow the possibility to produce on large scale.
Silicon quantum photonics promises to take quantum optics to the large scale, where single photons carry the quantum information which can accelerate difficult computational problems, provide perfectly secure communication, or allow high-accuracy measurements. The silicon photonics platform offers miniature, high-yield, and high-performance photonics which are integrable with CMOS electronics and telecommunications-band optics. To date, only non-scalable photon-pair sources, based on spontaneous four-wave mixing (SFWM) in straight silicon waveguides have been shown to interfere [1]. Until now, single-photon experiments in silicon [2] have exclusively used an off-chip apparatus, such as a silica arrayed waveguide grating, to control and manipulate photon frequency. We present a silicon-on-insulator quantum photonic device (Fig. 1a) able to generate and analyse two maximally entangled qubits. We use this device to demonstrate high-visibility quantum interferencebetween resonant SFWM sources (analogous to [1]), phase-stable frequency-selection, and quantum state tomography. We varied the phase  to obtain the fringes shown in Fig. 1b, with a visibility of 96.8%. This high visibility indicates that the two microring sources are substantially identical. We setup the entangled state via the on-chip 17-dB extinction filters, and used quantum state tomography to analyse it (Fig. 1c). We measured a fidelity of 0.8. This is the first time an entangled state of photonic qubits has been both generated and analysed on-chip, and this generation has been done in a way which is scalable to larger photon number. These results represent a new step towards fully silicon-integrated quantum photonics.
Recently there has been a worldwide effort to produce scalable qubit implementations for quantum information protocols, including quantum key distribution, quantum metrology and quantum computing---technologies which have the power to revolutionise their respective fields. Silicon photonics is in a prime position to provide the physical, photonic implementations of these technologies due to it's high-yield, high-performance and inherently scalable CMOS manufacturing infrastructure. The on-chip production of more than one uncorrelated photon pair (more than two photons) has remained a technological challenge. Here, we seek to overcome this using careful quantum photonic design, and state-of-the-art Silicon photonics technology. Our four-photon device expands the capabilities of integrated quantum photonics to fully entangled four photons, specifically the four photon graph states. In the graph state formalism, each vertex corresponds to a qubit, and each edge corresponds to a controlled-phase gate (an entangling operation) performed between the qubits it links. It has been shown that these states are very powerful---simple measurement strategies on certain graph states provide universal quantum computing. Interestingly, certain classes of graph states are equivalent under single-qubit transformations. These are the global entanglement classes. Our device uses both a reconfigurable entangling gate and local transformations to fully explore the space of 4 qubit graph states. The device employs four ring resonator sources, on-chip spectral demultiplexing, a reconfigurable entangling gate, and single-qubit transformations for each qubit. Using these capabilities, we can verify our entangled quantum states using entanglement witnesses, local tomography, and by running toy measurement-based quantum computations. These devices will be both the largest and most diverse integrated photonic quantum state generators produced to date. A vital demonstration of this work is high-quality quantum interference between spontaneous four-wave mixing photon-pair sources on the same chip. These ideas and proof-of-concept demonstrations point to large scale quantum technology, built using today's technologies.
This thesis work covers both classical and quantum aspects of nonlinear propagation of photons in nanophotonic Silicon waveguides. The work has been carried out within the framework of the project SIQURO, which aims to bring the quantum world into integrated photonics by using the Silicon platform and, therefore, permitting in a natural way the integration of quantum photonics with electronics. The research towards on chip bright quantum sources of photon pairs has been done by investigating Multi Modal Four Wave Mixing in micrometer-size waveguides, thus exploiting the large third order nonlinearity of Silicon. The possibility to induce second order nonlinearities by straining its unit cell has been also analyzed through the study of the electro-optic effect. This has been done with the aim to promote Silicon as a platform for the integration of quantum sources of entangled photons based on Spontaneous Parametric Down Conversion. New quantum interference effects have been reported in a free space unbalanced Mach Zehnder interferometer asymmetrically excited by colour entangled photon pairs. Innovative designs of integrated quantum circuits have been proposed, which extend the capabilities of the quantum circuits demonstrated so far and provide additional functionalities. This work represents a step forward to the realization of self subsistent integrated devices for quantum enhanced measurement, quantum computation and quantum crypthography.