Optical Detection and Control of Single Magnetic Ions in Photonic Microcavities

Chetan Deshmukh, Bernardo Casabone, Hugues de Riedmatten +5 more

Single quantum emitters coupled to optical cavities in the Purcell regime can be used as high-efficiency spin-photon interfaces that are essential for building a quantum network. Furthermore, the dynamical control of the spontaneous emission rate of quantum emitters can have important implications in quantum technologies, e.g. for shaping the emitted photons waveform, or for driving coherently the optical transition while preventing photon emission. Here we demonstrate the dynamical Purcell-enhanced emission of a mesoscopic ensemble of erbium ions doped into nanocrystals coupled to a fully-tunable high-finesse fiber-based optical microcavity. Erbium has excellent optical and spin coherence properties at cryogenic temperatures and, in addition, has a transition in the telecom band that can facilitate integration into existing commercial telecom fibers. We show that we can tune the cavity on and out of resonance at a rate of above 8 KHz, which is two orders of magnitude faster that the natural lifetime of the erbium ions (55 Hz), and a factor of five faster than the Purcell enhanced emission (1.8 KHz). This allows us to shape in real time the Purcell enhanced emission of the ions and to achieve full control over the emitted photon’s waveforms. With moderate improvements in our detection efficiency and cavity finesse, this capability will allow for the generation of single telecom photons with controllable wave-shape from single erbium ions and for the realization of quantum processing between rare-earth ion qubits using dipolar interactions.

H. Yokoyama

Kangwei Xia, Fiammetta Sardi, Colin Sauerzapf +6 more

Electro-optical control of on-chip photonic devices is an essential tool for efficient integrated photonics. Lithium niobate on insulator (LNOI) is an emerging platform for on-chip photonics due to its large electro-optic coefficient and high nonlinearity [1]. Integrating quantum emitters into LNOI would extend their versatile use in classic photonics to quantum computing and communication [2, 3]. Here, we incorporate single rare-earth ions (REI) quantum emitters in electro-optical tunable lithium niobite (LN) thin films and demonstrate control of LN microcavities coupled to REI over a frequency range of 160 GHz with 5 \mus switching speed. Dynamical control of the cavities enables the modulation of the Purcell enhancement of the REIs with short time constants. Using the Purcell enhancement, we show evidence of detecting single Yb3+ ions in LN cavities. Coupling quantum emitters in fast tunable photonic devices is an efficient method to shape the waveform of the emitter [4]. It also offers a platform to encode quantum information in the integration of a spectral-temporal-spatial domain to achieve high levels of channel multiplexing, as well as an approach to generate deterministic single-photon sources [5, 6].

Violetta Sharoglazova, Marius Puplauskis, Carl Ulrich Mattschas +3 more

Kangwei Xia, Fiammetta Sardi, Colin Sauerzapf +8 more

Electro-optical control of on-chip photonic devices is an essential tool for efficient integrated photonics. Lithium niobate on insulator (LNOI) is an emerging platform for on-chip photonics due to its large electro-optic coefficient and high nonlinearity. Integrating quantum emitters into LNOI would extend their versatility in classic photonics to quantum computing and communication. Here, we incorporate rare-earth ion (REI) quantum emitters into electro-optical tunable lithium niobite (LN) thin films and demonstrate control of LN microcavities coupled to REIs over a frequency range of 160 GHz with 5 µs switching speed. Dynamic control of the cavities enables modulation of the Purcell enhancement of REIs with short time constants. Using Purcell enhancement, we show evidence of detecting single Y b 3 + ions in LN cavities. Coupling quantum emitters in fast tunable photonic devices is an efficient method to shape the waveform of the emitter. It also offers a platform to encode quantum information in the integration of a spectral–temporal–spatial domain to achieve high levels of channel multiplexing, as well as an approach to generate deterministic single-photon sources.