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Optics Letters

Efficient single-photon counting at 155 µm by means of frequency upconversion

Marius A. Albotǎ, Franco N. C. Wong

Published Jul 1, 2004• 316 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We demonstrate efficient single-photon detection at 1.55 microm by means of sum-frequency mixing with a strong pump at 1.064 microm in periodically poled lithium niobate followed by photon counting in the visible region. This scheme offers significant advantages over existing InGaAs photon counters: continuous-wave operation, higher detection efficiency, higher counting rates, and no afterpulsing. We achieved single-photon upconversion efficiency of 90% at 21.6 W of circulating power in a resonant pump cavity with a 400-mW Nd:YAG laser. We observed high background counts at strong circulating pump powers due to efficient upconversion of pump-induced fluorescence photons.

DOI
10.1364/ol.29.001449

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We demonstrate efficient single-photon detection at 1.55 microm by means of sum-frequency mixing with a strong pump at 1.064 microm in periodically poled lithium niobate followed by photon counting in the visible region. This scheme offers significant advantages over existing InGaAs photon counters: continuous-wave operation, higher detection efficiency, higher counting rates, and no afterpulsing. We achieved single-photon upconversion efficiency of 90% at 21.6 W of circulating power in a resonant pump cavity with a 400-mW Nd:YAG laser. We observed high background counts at strong circulating pump powers due to efficient upconversion of pump-induced fluorescence photons.
A single-photon signal at 1.55 microm was converted to the visible region by sum-frequency mixing with a strong pumping beam at 1064 nm in a periodically poled lithium niobate crystal placed in a diode-pumped Nd:YVO4 laser cavity. As the intracavity pump laser could be automatically stabilized without cavity lock, robust long-term stability was demonstrated for single-photon frequency upconversion, with a conversion efficiency of 74.3%. Such a stable single-photon upconversion was demonstrated to be efficient and robust for single-photon counting at 1550 nm, and the corresponding background noise was measured at less than 420 x 10(3) s(-1).
A single-photon signal at 1.55μm was converted to its visible replica by sum-frequency mixing with a strong intracavity pump of a unidirectional ring laser at 1.06μm in a periodically poled lithium niobate (PPLN) crystal. In the ring laser configuration, standing-wave photorefractive effects in the PPLN crystal could be suppressed and consequently, the spectral bandwidth of the intracavity pump could be controlled for excellent quasi-phase-matching. A conversion efficiency of 96% was demonstrated, and the corresponding background counts were less than 6.0×105s−1. The single-photon upconversion was used for efficient single-photon counting at 1.55μm with long-term stability.
We demonstrate efficient single-photon detection at 1.04 μm with quite low background counts by using the frequency upconversion detection technique with pulsed single-photon source and strong pump field prepared from two synchronized fiber lasers. Temporal and spectral control of the pump and signal lasers enabled an upconversion efficiency of 81.1%. As the system was pumped at a wavelength longer than that of the signal, the corresponding background counts were reduced down to 1.5×103 s−1 due to efficient suppression of parametric fluorescence in the periodic poled lithium niobate crystal.
Single-photon signals at 1.56 ¿m were converted into the visible region by sum-frequency generation, with synchronous pump pulses at 1.03 ¿m in a periodically poled lithium niobate crystal. The signal and pump sources were provided by two synchronized mode-locked fiber lasers at the operation rate of 7.88 MHz. Such a high-speed single-photon upconversion system has shown an overall detection efficiency of 10.4%. The corresponding background noise was measured to be 3.3 × 103s-1. The noise-equivalent power in this scheme was 9.93 × 10-17W/Hz1/2, which was the lowest compared to the other upconversion systems with similar pump and signal wavelengths.
We propose a method of single photon detection of infrared (IR) photons at potentially higher efficiencies and lower noise than allowed by traditional IR band avalanche photodiodes (APDs). By up-converting the photon from the IR, e.g. 1550 nm, to a visible wavelength in a nonlinear crystal, we can utilize the much higher efficiency of silicon APDs at these wavelengths. We have used a periodically poled lithium niobate (PPLN) crystal and a pulsed 1064 nm Nd:YAG laser to perform the up-conversion to a 631 nm photon. We observed conversion efficiencies as high as ∼ 80%, and demonstrated scaling down to the single photon level while maintaining a background of 3 ×s; 10−4 dark counts per count. We also propose a 2-crystal extension of this scheme, whereby orthogonal polarizations may be up-converted coherently, thus enabling complete quantum state transduction of arbitrary states.