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Advanced Materials

Photon‐Pair Generation with a 100 nm Thick Carbon Nanotube Film

Kim Fook Lee, Ying Tian, He Yang, Kimmo Mustonen, Amos Martinez, Qing Dai, Esko I. Kauppinen, John E. Malowicki, Prem Kumar, Zhipei Sun

Published Apr 24, 2017• 37 citations

Abstract

Nonlinear optics based on bulk materials is the current technique of choice for quantum-state generation and information processing. Scaling of nonlinear optical quantum devices is of significant interest to enable quantum devices with high performance. However, it is challenging to scale the nonlinear optical devices down to the nanoscale dimension due to relatively small nonlinear optical response of traditional bulk materials. Here, correlated photon pairs are generated in the nanometer scale using a nonlinear optical device for the first time. The approach uses spontaneous four-wave mixing in a carbon nanotube film with extremely large Kerr-nonlinearity (≈100 000 times larger than that of the widely used silica), which is achieved through careful control of the tube diameter during the carbon nanotube growth. Photon pairs with a coincidence to accidental ratio of 18 at the telecom wavelength of 1.5 µm are generated at room temperature in a ≈100 nm thick carbon nanotube film device, i.e., 1000 times thinner than the smallest existing devices. These results are promising for future integrated nonlinear quantum devices (e.g., quantum emission and processing devices).

DOI: 10.1002/adma.201605978

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Nonlinear optics based on bulk materials is the current technique of choice for quantum-state generation and information processing. Scaling of nonlinear optical quantum devices is of significant interest to enable quantum devices with high performance. However, it is challenging to scale the nonlinear optical devices down to the nanoscale dimension due to relatively small nonlinear optical response of traditional bulk materials. Here, correlated photon pairs are generated in the nanometer scale using a nonlinear optical device for the first time. The approach uses spontaneous four-wave mixing in a carbon nanotube film with extremely large Kerr-nonlinearity (≈100 000 times larger than that of the widely used silica), which is achieved through careful control of the tube diameter during the carbon nanotube growth. Photon pairs with a coincidence to accidental ratio of 18 at the telecom wavelength of 1.5 µm are generated at room temperature in a ≈100 nm thick carbon nanotube film device, i.e., 1000 times thinner than the smallest existing devices. These results are promising for future integrated nonlinear quantum devices (e.g., quantum emission and processing devices).

ABSTRACT The recent emergence of van der Waals (vdW) materials with exceptional optical nonlinearity has driven advances in next‐generation nonlinear photonic devices beyond classical optics. While integrating these materials into fiber‐optic platforms offers unprecedented functionalities in quantum systems, realizing telecom‐band in‐line photon‐pair sources based on highly nonlinear vdW materials remains challenging. Here, we report photon‐pair generation centered at telecom wavelength via spontaneous parametric down‐conversion in a fiber‐integrated device incorporating a ferroelectric vdW crystal, SnP 2 S 6 . Benefiting from its giant optical nonlinearity and relaxed phase‐matching across near‐visible to telecom‐band wavelengths, a remarkable nonlinear conversion efficiency of 0.07% is achieved in a few‐micrometer‐thick SnP 2 S 6 film. Moreover, the fiber‐integrated SnP 2 S 6 device delivers high‐quality photon pairs at telecom wavelengths, achieving a detected coincidence rate of 102 counts/s. The coincidence‐to‐accidental ratio reached up to 55 662, which is much larger than that of previous vdW‐material‐based sources. Furthermore, the device generates polarization‐entangled photon pairs, which are verified via quantum state tomography to exhibit fidelities of 0.97 and concurrences of 0.95. This demonstration establishes a scalable, robust fiber‐integrated platform that combines the versatility of vdW materials, paving the way toward low‐loss, functionalized quantum photonic systems for networking, sensing, and computing.

We generate photon pairs at telecom wavelength through a spontaneous four-wave mixing process in a short 10 m of highly nonlinear fiber. We use a counterpropagating scheme to generate a correlated and entangled photon pair. We observe coincidence to accidental-coincidence ratio of 29±3 at room temperature (300 K) and as high as 130±5 when the fiber is cooled to liquid-nitrogen temperature (77 K). Two-photon interference with visibility >98% (>92%) and the violation of Bell's inequality by >12 (≈5) standard deviation are observed at 77 K (300 K), respectively, without subtracting accidental-coincidence count. We obtain a photon-pair production rate about factor 3(2) higher than a 300 m dispersion-shifted fiber at 300 K (77 K).

Based on the spontaneous four wave mixing in micro/nano-fiber (MNF), we report the generation of quantum-correlated photon pairs. The wavelengths of the signal and idler photons are in the 1310 nm and 851 nm bands, respectively. The measured ratio between the coincidence and accidental coincidence rates of signal and idler photons is up to 530. Moreover, we characterize the spectral property of the signal photons in the wavelength range of 1270-1610 nm. The results reveal that the bandwidth of the photon pairs is much greater than the theoretically expected value due to the inhomogeneity of the MNF; while the spectrum of Raman scattering in MNF is different from that in conventional optical fibers and photonic crystal fibers, which may originate from the heating used for fabricating the MNF. Our investigation shows that the MNF is a promising candidate for developing the sources of quantum light in micro- or nanometer-scales, and the spectral property of photon pairs can be used to non-invasively test the diameter and homogeneity of the MNF.

We report on the generation of correlated photon pairs in AlGaAs-on-insulator (AlGaAs-OI) waveguides through nonlinear spontaneous four-wave-mixing (SFWM). Our measurements reveal an SFWM pair generation efficiency of ∼ 0.096 × 10 12 p a i r s / ( s W 2 ) at a wavelength of 1550 nm. This is one of the highest efficiencies achieved to date for integrated SFWM sources. A maximal coincidence-to-accidental ratio of ∼ 122 is measured. A spectral characterization of the device’s pair emission at the quantum level demonstrates a broad generation bandwidth of 2.0 THz, which is important for frequency multiplexing applications. Our results indicate that AlGaAs-OI is an efficient material platform for integrated quantum photonics at telecom wavelengths.

A one-meter-long high nonlinear photonic crystal fiber is pumped by laser pulse train at room temperature, and the generated correlated idler and signal photons are centred at 830 nm and 1411 nm, respectively. The full widths at half maximum of the broad band filters of the two channel are 15 nm and 35 nm, respectively. The fitting results of single channel photon counts reveal that almost all the photons originate from spontaneous four wave mixing and the influence of Raman scattering is eliminated. When the production rate is 0.0085 photon per pulse, the ratio between coincidence rate and accidental coincidence rate is measured to be 102, which not only confirms the low noise property of the photon pair, but also shows that the photon pair are naturally narrow band, and the collecting efficiency in our experiment is high. Moreover, these high purity photon pairs connect different optical bands, and have potential applications in quantum information technologies.