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Optics Express

Investigation of the silicon vacancy color center for quantum key distribution

Yan Liu, Petr Siyushev, Youying Rong, Botao Wu, Liam Paul McGuinness, Fedor Jelezko, Syuto Tamura, Takashi Tanii, Tokuyuki Teraji, Shinobu Onoda, Takeshi Ohshima, Junichi Isoya, Takahiro Shinada, Heping Zeng, E Wu

Published Dec 14, 2015• 12 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Single photon sources (SPS) are crucial for quantum key distribution. Here we demonstrate a stable triggered SPS at 738 nm with linewidth less than 5 nm at room temperature based on a negatively charged single silicon vacancy color center. Thanks to the short photon duration of about 1.3-1.7 ns, by using high repetition pulsed excitation at 30 MHz, the triggered single photon source generates 16.6 kcounts/s. And we discuss the feasibility of this triggered SPS in the application of quantum key distribution.

DOI
10.1364/oe.23.032961

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Single photon sources (SPS) are crucial for quantum key distribution. Here we demonstrate a stable triggered SPS at 738 nm with linewidth less than 5 nm at room temperature based on a negatively charged single silicon vacancy color center. Thanks to the short photon duration of about 1.3-1.7 ns, by using high repetition pulsed excitation at 30 MHz, the triggered single photon source generates 16.6 kcounts/s. And we discuss the feasibility of this triggered SPS in the application of quantum key distribution.
We present a detailed study of photophysical properties of single color centers in natural diamond samples emitting in the near infrared under optical excitation. Photoluminescence of these single emitters has several striking features, including narrow-band (FWHM 2 nm) fully polarized emission around 780 nm, a short excited-state lifetime of about 2 ns, and perfect photostability at room temperature under our excitation conditions. Development of a triggered single-photon source relying on this single color center is discussed for application to quantum key distribution.
The nanodiamond technology has developed the first packaged, single-photon source that operates at room temperature and in well-lit environments, where an ideal single-photon source produces one photon per pulse. These sources are key components for building quantum information systems that can implement quantum-key distribution (QKD) for ultrasecure communications. The optically active color centers in diamond have been found to exhibit attractive optical properties through the nitrogen-vacancy (N-V) center emission ranging 600 to 750 nm, and that have realized the practical sources of single-photon emission. Photo statistics has to be determined to measure the performance of a single-photon source, which can be measured by the autocorrelation function g2 (0) using Hanbury-Brown and Twiss interferometer. The results showed that the SPS 1.01 demonstrates stable single-photon performance without requirement of recalibration.
Single-photon sources (SPS) play a key-role in many applications, spanning from quantum metrology, to quantum information and to the foundations of quantum mechanics. Even if an ideal SPS (i. e. emitting indistinguishable, ”on-demand” single photons, at an arbitrarily fast repetition rate) is far to be realized due to real-world deviations from the ideality, much effort is currently devoted to improving the performance of real sources. With regards to the emission probability, it appears natural to employ sources that are in principle deterministic in the single- photon emission (single quantum emitters such as single atoms, ions, molecules, quantum dots, or color centers in diamond) as opposed to probabilistic ones (usually heralded SPS based on parametric down-conversion). We present an overview of our latest results concerning a work-in-progress NIR pulsed single photon source based on single quantum emitters (color centers in diamond) exploiting recently reported centers. They are particularly interesting because of the narrow emission line (tipically less than 5 nm), the shorter excited state lifetime with respect to NV centres (1 - 2 ns compared to 12 ns, allowing a ten-fold photon emission rate upon saturation) and the polarized emission.
Abstract Silicon is a leading material platform for photonic quantum technologies. However, a key challenge remains the efficient integration of high-performance single-photon sources in the near infrared. Here we present an all-silicon single-photon source at 1217 nm wavelength, fabricated by nanoscale positioning of a single W center in a circular Bragg grating cavity. The operation wavelength corresponds to the W center’s zero-phonon line that is enhanced by the cavity. Under above-gap continuous-wave excitation, we obtain a saturated photon count rate of 1.29 × 10 6 counts/s with pronounced photon antibunching ( g (2) (0) = 0.06 ± 0.02). Triggered operation under weak pulsed excitation produces single photons with 93 ± 2% purity. At saturation, we reveal purity degradation due to repumping processes, that could be mitigated using selective excitation schemes in the future. These results represent a major step towards on-demand sources of indistinguishable single photons in silicon photonics.