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arXiv:2607.02016 · Acta Physica Sinica

Mid-infrared pure-state quantum light source based on lithium niobate waveguides

Huang Yuhang, Wang Dongzhou, Ke Shaolin, Jin Ruibo

quant-phSubmitted Jul 2, 2026• Announced Jul 3, 2026• 0 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Mid-infrared quantum light sources hold broad application prospects in fields such as gas sensing and infrared thermal imaging. However, currently used mid-infrared quantum entangled light sources primarily rely on bulk periodically poled lithium niobate (PPLN) crystals, which limits brightness and integration. This paper proposes a theoretical scheme based on lithium niobate thin films, in which 1556.9 nm pumping is used to generate entangled photon pairs with a central wavelength of 3113.8 nm. By optimizing the waveguide structure and periodic polarization design, type-II phase matching and group velocity matching are achieved. This enables transverse electric (TE)-polarized pump input to be down converted to generate photon pairs with TE and transverse magnetic (TM) polarizations. Furthermore, by combining a domain arrangement algorithm used for the customized design of polarization direction in PPLN waveguides, precise phase matching is achieved, resulting in a quantum light source with a purity as high as 0.999 and a brightness of 6.18$\times 10^6$ cps/mW, which is three orders of magnitude higher than that of the bulk PPLN crystal source. This study provides a promising solution for realizing high-brightness, high-purity on-chip quantum light sources in the mid-infrared band.

Journal reference
Acta Phys. Sin., 2026, 75(4): 040602
DOI
10.7498/aps.75.20251398
Comments
12 pages, 4 figures

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Mid-infrared quantum light sources hold broad application prospects in fields such as gas sensing and infrared thermal imaging. However, currently used mid-infrared quantum entangled light sources primarily rely on bulk periodically poled lithium niobate (PPLN) crystals, which limits brightness and integration. This paper proposes a theoretical scheme based on lithium niobate thin films, in which 1556.9 nm pumping is used to generate entangled photon pairs with a central wavelength of 3113.8 nm. By optimizing the waveguide structure and periodic polarization design, type-II phase matching and group velocity matching are achieved. This enables transverse electric (TE)-polarized pump input to be down converted to generate photon pairs with TE and transverse magnetic (TM) polarizations. Furthermore, by combining a domain arrangement algorithm used for the customized design of polarization direction in PPLN waveguides, precise phase matching is achieved, resulting in a quantum light source with a purity as high as 0.999 and a brightness of 6.18×106\times 10^6×106 cps/mW, which is three orders of magnitude higher than that of the bulk PPLN crystal source. This study provides a promising solution for realizing high-brightness, high-purity on-chip quantum light sources in the mid-infrared band.
The single-photon source in mid-infrared (MIR) band is very important for the next generation of quantum sensing, quantum communication and quantum imaging. At present, the commonly used method of generating MIR single-photon source is based on the spontaneous parametric down conversion (SPDC) process in the periodically poled lithium niobate (PPLN) crystal. However, the spectral purity of single-photon source based on the ordinary PPLN is not high, specifically, its maximum value is only about 0.82, which affects the fidelity of quantum information processing scheme. In this paper, 4000 polarized domains in a 30-mm-long LN crystal are customized by using the domain design theory. The sidelobes in the phase matching function are eliminated, and the Gaussian distribution is obtained. The calculated spectral purity of the single-photon source can reach 0.99, and its tunable range is 2.7–3.3 μm. The customized poled lithium niobate (CPLN) is expected to provide a single-photon source with excellent performance for the study of quantum information in the MIR band.
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Abstract Polarisation-entangled photon pairs generated through nonlinear optical processes are crucial ingredients for a range of quantum information processing applications, such as quantum sensing and communication. In this work, we report an optimised design of a lithium niobate on insulator waveguide that is capable of directly generating polarisation-entangled photon pairs enabled through two different spontaneous parametric down-conversion processes simultaneously in the telecommunication wavelength band with a single poling period, based on Type II phase matching. The generated photon pairs cover wavelengths in telecom O (1310 nm) and telecom C (1550 nm) bands with the computed spectral brightness of ≈ 2 × 10 9 pairs sec − 1 mW − 1 . We also study the effect of temporal delay on the quality of entanglement, which is minimised by selecting an appropriate length of the waveguide and pump bandwidth. The optimised integrated quantum light source, presented here, eliminates the need for complex domain engineering or intermodal dispersion and will serve as a valuable resource for various quantum-optical experiments.
Quantum photonics has rapidly advanced as a key area for developing quantum technologies by harnessing photons' inherent quantum characteristics, particularly entanglement. Generation of entangled photon pairs, known as Bell states, is crucial for quantum communications, precision sensing, and quantum computing. While bulk quantum optical setups have provided foundational progress, integrated quantum photonic platforms now offer superior scalability, efficiency, and integrative potential. In this study, we demonstrate a compact and bright source of polarization-entangled Bell state utilizing continuous-wave pumping on thin film lithium niobate (TFLN) integrated photonics. Our periodically poled lithium niobate device achieves on-chip brightness of photon pair generation rate of 508.5 MHz/mW, surpassing other integrated platforms including silicon photonics. This demonstration marks the first realization of polarization entanglement on TFLN platforms. Experimentally measured metrics confirm high-quality entangled photon pairs with a purity of 0.901, a concurrence of 0.9, and a fidelity of 0.944. We expect our compact quantum devices to have great potential for advancing quantum communication systems and photonic quantum technologies.
Quantum photonics has rapidly advanced as a key area for developing quantum technologies by harnessing photons’ inherent quantum characteristics, particularly entanglement. Generation of entangled photon pairs, known as Bell states, is crucial for quantum communications, precision sensing, and quantum computing. While bulk quantum optical setups have provided foundational progress, integrated quantum photonic platforms now offer superior scalability, efficiency, and integrative potential. In this study, we demonstrate a compact and bright source of polarization-entangled Bell state utilizing continuous-wave pumping on thin film lithium niobate (TFLN) integrated photonics. Our periodically poled lithium niobate device achieves on-chip brightness of photon pair generation rate of 518.2 MHz/mW, comparable to representative integrated photon-pair sources reported across various integrated photonic platforms. This demonstration marks the first realization, to our knowledge, of polarization entanglement on TFLN platforms. Experimentally measured metrics confirm high-quality entangled photon pairs with a purity of 0.901, a concurrence of 0.9, and a fidelity of 0.941. We expect our compact quantum devices to have great potential for advancing quantum communication systems and photonic quantum technologies.
Entangled photon pairs generated by a low-power continuous-wave laser could replicate pulsed laser-based tabletop spectroscopy by taking advantage of the inherent quantum correlations between the photons. Much of the current work in the thin-film lithium niobate platform has focused on infrared wavelengths, leaving shorter wavelengths still a largely unexplored space, particularly for spectroscopy. In this work, we have fabricated periodically poled lithium niobate nanophotonic waveguides for entangled photon generation through spontaneous parametric downconversion with a visible pump (406 nm). Characterization of the waveguided pair source confirms the spectral and temporal correlations of energy-time entangled photons with an on-chip pair generation efficiency of (2.3 ± 0.5) × 1011 pairs/s/mW, brightness of (1.6 ± 0.3) × 109 pairs/s/mW/nm, and two-photon interference visibility greater than 99%. With the same material platform, we have also demonstrated second harmonic generation with on-chip powers up to 30 μW and wavelengths as low as 355 nm, demonstrating lithium niobate's potential for ultraviolet nonlinear photonics and frequency doubling in the UV-A spectral region. Through design of larger cross-section waveguides, we have also explored how variations in the lithium niobate thin film thickness can affect quasi-phase matching. To date, this is the first reported demonstration of periodically poled lithium niobate nanophotonic waveguides for spontaneous parametric downconversion at a fully visible pump wavelength (406 nm) as well as second harmonic generation in the UV (355 nm). Future work towards fully on-chip spectroscopy will explore integrating an on-chip Mach-Zehnder interferometer with the entangled photon source.