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Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE

Semiconductor sources of photon pairs

Gregor Weihs, T. Günthner, Benedikt Pressl, Rolf T. Horn, Payam Abolghasem, Bhavin J. Bijlani, Dongpeng Kang, Amr Saher Helmy

Published Mar 29, 2013• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We demonstrate efficient photon pair generation for quantum communication using an all-semiconductor approach. In an AlGaAs Bragg-reflection waveguide we employ spontaneous parametric down-conversion to produce photon pairs at telecommunication wavelengths. The various phase-matching solutions present in our device can be used to create timebin or polarization entanglement. This approach can to lead to a fully integrated photon pair source with the pump laser, active and passive optical devices all on a single semiconductor chip.

DOI
10.1117/12.2002591

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AlGaAs Bragg reflection waveguides are promising systems for the generation of single and entangled photons through the process of spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) [1]. We use a type II SPDC process where the downconverted photons are orthogonally polarized. The produced photons are inherently polarization-entangled eliminating the need for any additional entanglement setup. The material AlGaAs is our preferred choice as a nonlinear medium because it features a high nonlinear coefficient allowing for room temperature operation and has the advantage of being a non-birefringent material. Further, the material platform allows for the direct integration of a pump laser into the same chip.
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