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APL Photonics

LiNbO3 waveguides for integrated SPDC spectroscopy

Alexander S. Solntsev, Pawan Kumar, Thomas Pertsch, Andrey A. Sukhorukov, Frank Setzpfandt

Published Feb 1, 2018• 51 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) spectroscopy using photon pairs is a promising avenue towards affordable mid-infrared (MIR) spectroscopy. Here, we experimentally investigate the feasibility of using periodically poled waveguides in lithium niobate for SPDC spectroscopy applications. We find the waveguides suitable to generate wavelength non-degenerate photon pairs with one photon in the MIR spectral range with high fluence. We use this to determine the cutoff wavelengths of the waveguide mode in the MIR by performing only measurements in the near-infrared spectral range.

DOI
10.1063/1.5009766

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Spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) spectroscopy using photon pairs is a promising avenue towards affordable mid-infrared (MIR) spectroscopy. Here, we experimentally investigate the feasibility of using periodically poled waveguides in lithium niobate for SPDC spectroscopy applications. We find the waveguides suitable to generate wavelength non-degenerate photon pairs with one photon in the MIR spectral range with high fluence. We use this to determine the cutoff wavelengths of the waveguide mode in the MIR by performing only measurements in the near-infrared spectral range.
Recent advances of high-quality lithium niobate (LN) on insulator technology have revitalized the progress of novel chip-integrated LN-based photonic devices and accelerated application research. One of the promising technologies of interest is the generation of entangled photon pairs based on spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) in LNs. In this paper, we investigated, theoretically and numerically, Type II SPDC in two kinds of LNs—undoped and 5-mol% MgO doped LNs. In each case, both non-poled and periodically poled crystals were considered. The technique is based on the SPDC under Type II extended phase matching, where the phase matching and the group velocity matching are simultaneously achieved between interacting photons. The proposed approach has not yet been reported for LNs. We discussed all factors required to generate photon pairs in LNs, in terms of the beam propagation direction, the spectral position of photons, and the corresponding effective nonlinearities and walk-offs. We showed that the spectral positions of the generated photon pairs fall into the mid-infrared region with high potential for free-space quantum communication, spectroscopy, and high-sensitivity metrology. The joint spectral analyses showed that photon pairs can be generated with high purities of 0.995–0.999 with proper pump filtering.
Nonlinear interferometers based on non-degenerate spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) create a link between separate spectral ranges. This allows for measurements in remote spectral regions while detecting light in easily accessible wavelengths. In our work, we use periodically poled lithium niobate to create correlated signal (visible or near-infrared) and idler (mid-infrared) photon pairs. Using a nonlinear interferometer in Michelson geometry, we obtain broadband mid-infrared spectra from light detected with a silicon avalanche photodiode. Combining the nonlinear interferometer with a measurement scheme in close analogy to classical Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy allows for sub-wavenumber spectral resolution, which opens up possibilities for applications such as precise spectroscopic gas analysis.
By utilizing the extended phase-matching (EPM) method, we investigate the generation of single photons with high spectral-purity in a magnesium-doped periodically-poled lithium niobate (MgO:PPLN) crystal via the spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) process. By adjusting the temperature and pump wavelength, the wavelength of the single photons can be tuned from telecom to mid-infrared (MIR) wavelengths, for which the spectral-purity can be above 0.95 with high transmission filters. In experiments, we engineer a MgO:PPLN with poling period of 20.35 μm which emits the EPM photon pair centered at 1496.6 nm and 1644.0 nm and carry out the joint spectral intensity (JSI) and Glauber’s second-order self-correlation measurements to characterize the spectral purity. The results are in good agreement with the numerical simulations. Our work may provide a valuable approach for the generation of spectrally pure single photons at a wide range of wavelengths which is competent for various photonic quantum technologies.
In this paper, we study the possible parametric down conversion processes in a periodically poled customized Lithium Niobate (LiNbO3) ridge waveguide. Our analysis of spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC), first, with a Gaussian pump beam mode and second, with an anti-symmetric Hermite-Gaussian HG (1,0) pump beam mode predict the possible down conversion processes in each case. From our JSA analysis, it is evident that the generated photons pairs in all these cases are negatively correlated and have orthogonal polarizations. In case of the former, degenerate photon pairs are emitted at 1550 nm with the highest efficiency in the fundamental waveguide mode. While, in case of the latter, non-degenerate photon pairs in different higher order spatial modes are generated. Such photons, thus, have multiple degrees of freedom, like polarization and spatial modes, which can be further harnessed towards hyper-entangled photons for quantum information applications.
Lithium niobate (LiNbO3) is a prime material for photonics thanks to a unique mix of properties, including strong electro-optical and nonlinear optical responses as well as a broad transparency window spanning the visible and near-infrared (NIR) range (0.35 to 4.5 μm). Despite the inherent challenges in the nanofabrication of LiNbO3, caused by its hardness and resistance to chemical etching, recent technical advances eventually enabled the realization of deeply sub-μm features in LiNbO3,thereby enabling a series of breakthroughs in the field of nano-and meta-photonics [1]. Nonlinear nano-optics has especially benefitted from such improvements thanks to the large second-order diagonal nonlinearity of LiNbO3. Several LiNbO3metasurfaces have been designed to enhance and steer second-harmonic generation (SHG) [1] emitted up to the visible range [2]. Similar designs were also exploited for generating photon pairs via spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) [3], a quantum process where a single photon is converted into two photons of the same total energy, see Fig. 1c (right).