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Frontiers in Optics

Spectral compression of single photon wavepackets by an electro-optic time lens

Michał Jachura, Michał Karpiński, Brian J. Smith

Published Jan 1, 2016• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We demonstrate sixfold spectral bandwidth compression of a single photon by employing electro-optic time lens. The device increases photon flux through a narrowband spectral feature, making a key step in developement of hybrid quantum networks.
DOI
10.1364/fio.2016.ff1d.4

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Spectral-temporal manipulation of optical pulses has enabled numerous developments within a broad range of research topics, ranging from fundamental science to practical applications. Within quantum optics spectral-temporal degree of freedom of light offers a promising platform for integrated photonic quantum information processing. An important challenge in experimentally realizing spectral-temporal manipulation of quantum states of light is the need for highly efficient manipulation tools. In this context the intrinsically deterministic electro-optic methods show great promise for quantum applications. We experimentally demonstrate application of electro-optic platform for spectral-temporal manipulation of ultrashort pulsed quantum light. Using techniques analogous to serrodyne frequency shifting we show active spectral translation of few-picosecond single photon pulses by up to 0.5 THz. By employing an approach based on an electro-optic time lens we demonstrate up to 6-fold spectral compression of heralded single photon pulses with efficiency that enables us to significantly increase single photon flux through a narrow bandpass filter. We realize the required temporal phase manipulation by driving a lithium niobate waveguided electrooptic modulator with 33 dBm sinusoidal RF field at the frequency of either 10 GHz or 40 GHz. We use a phase lock loop to temporally lock the RF field to the 80 MHz repetition rate of approximately 1 ps long optical pulses. Heralded single photon wavepackets are generated by means of spontaneous parametric down-conversion in potassium dihydrogen phosphate (KDP) crystal, which enables preparation of spectrally pure single photon wavepackets without the need for spectral filtering. Spectral shifting is achieved by locking single-photon pulses to the linear slope of sinusoidal 40 GHz RF phase modulation. We verify the spectral shift by performing spectrally resolved heralded single photon counting, using frequency-to-time conversion by means of a highly dispersive chirped fiber Bragg grating. We verify the non-classicality of spectrally shifted single photons by measuring high-visibility Hong-Ou-Mandel interference using a reference single photon pulse. Spectral compression is based on the time lens principle, which requires locking optical pulses to approximately quadratic region of sinusoidal phase modulation. We utilize both 10 GHz and 40 GHz RF driving frequencies. Bandwidth compression is achieved by chirping the single photon pulse using an appropriate length of single-mode fibre and subsequently subjecting it to the action of the time lens. We verify spectral compression directly using the aforementioned spectrally-resolved heralded single photon counting method. We achieve 3-fold spectral compression of 2 nm bandwidth single photon pulses using 40 GHZ modulation frequency, and 6-fold spectral compression of 0.9 nm bandwidth single photon pulses using 10 GHz modulation frequency. Overall transmission of our set-up exceeding 30% enables practical usability of our spectral compression method which we demonstrate experimentally by showing an increased photon flux through a narrowband filter. Our results present an important contribution towards implementing quantum information processing in the spectral-temporal degree of freedom of a photon. In the context of quantum networks they present an enabling tool towards efficient photonic interfacing of different quantum information processing platforms.
Spectral-temporal shaping of quantum light has important applications in quantum communications and photonic quantum information processing. Electro-optic temporal lenses have recently been recognized as a tool for noise-free, efficient spectral bandwidth manipulation of single-photon wavepackets. However, standard electro-optic time lenses based on single-tone modulation exhibit, limited bandwidth modification factors due to material limitations on phase modulation amplitude. Here we numerically investigate the use of complex electro-optic temporal phase modulation patterns for bandwidth compression of light over multiple orders of magnitude and show the feasibility of their use in photonic interfaces for quantum network applications.
We experimentally demonstrate spectral manipulation of heralded single photons by electro-optic temporal phase modulation employing complex, Fresnel-like wide-band electronic waveforms. We show spectral compression of classical telecom light enhancing its maximal intensity by over 80, by compressing its full-width at half maximum (FWHM) bandwidth from 0.856 nm down to 3.1 pm (383 MHz), thus achieving a compression factor of over 270. We show a compression gain by increasing the aperture of a Fresnel time lens (temporal waveform duration). We demonstrate a similar compression on a single-photon level from ~1.5 nm (~190 GHz) down to the sub-2GHz regime. Our findings should significantly improve the performance of future quantum information processors based on hybrid quantum networks.
Two-photon interference is a cornerstone of photonic quantum technologies. However, its practical use in hybrid architectures is constrained by the need for photon indistinguishability, particularly in linewidth and the associated time scale. While narrowband filtering can improve interference visibility, it introduces significant photon loss - a critical limitation for applications. Here, we experimentally demonstrate an efficient approach to enable non-classical two-photon interference between spectral-bandwidth mismatched photons using an electro-optic time lens. We increase the visibility of Hong-Ou-Mandel (HOM) interference between spectral bandwidth mismatched photons from (31.0±1.7)%(31.0\pm1.7)\%(31.0±1.7)%, to (91.7±2.6)%(91.7\pm2.6)\%(91.7±2.6)%, with correction for accidental coincidences, achieving highly non-classical two-photon interference visibility without spectral filtering. Moreover, we demonstrate a simultaneous correction of the central wavelength mismatch of ±1.1\pm1.1±1.1 nm, while maintaining the non-classical interference visibility. This result opens the possibility to efficiently integrate quantum systems operating at different time scales for hybrid quantum communication, teleportation, entanglement swapping, distributed sensing, and hybrid quantum computing.