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European Quantum Electronics Conference (EQEC)

Photon Pair Generation in an Amorphous Silicon Micro-ring Resonator

Elizabeth Hemsley, Damien Bonneau, Gary F. Sinclair, Jason S. Pelc, Raymond G. Beausoleil, Shigehito Miki, Taro Yamashita, Mikio Fujiwara, Masahide Sasaki, Hirotaka Terai, Michael G. Tanner, Chandra M. Natarajan, Robert H. Hadfield, Jeremy L. O’Brien, Mark G. Thompson

Published Jun 21, 2015• 0 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

The high Kerr coefficient of amorphous silicon makes it a promising material for generating photons on chip via spontaneous four wave mixing (SFWM), for applications in quantum photonics. Previous work shows high photon generation rates in a-Si waveguides, [1], and here we expand this study to investigate micro-ring resonator photon sources, which have a small footprint and can produce photons with high spectral purity, ideal for quantum interference. We compare SFWM generation rates in an a-Si micro-ring resonator to a straight waveguide, in both continuous wave and pulsed pump regimes.

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The high Kerr coefficient of amorphous silicon makes it a promising material for generating photons on chip via spontaneous four wave mixing (SFWM), for applications in quantum photonics. Previous work shows high photon generation rates in a-Si waveguides, [1], and here we expand this study to investigate micro-ring resonator photon sources, which have a small footprint and can produce photons with high spectral purity, ideal for quantum interference. We compare SFWM generation rates in an a-Si micro-ring resonator to a straight waveguide, in both continuous wave and pulsed pump regimes.
Abstract We generate photon pairs in a-Si:H microrings using a CW pump, and find the Kerr coefficient of a-Si:H to be 3.73 ± 0.25 × 10−17m2/W. By measuring the Q factor with coupled power we find that the loss in the a-Si:H micro-rings scales linearly with power, and therefore cannot originate from two photon absorption. Theoretically comparing a-Si:H and c-Si micro-ring pair sources, we show that the high Kerr coefficient of this sample of a-Si:H is best utilized for microrings with Q factors below 103, but that for higher Q factor devices the photon pair rate is greatly suppressed due to the first order loss.
Recently, many researchers focus on the integration of single photon sources on an optical chip toward the realization of large-scale quantum information processing.Identical single photons are required to obtain good interference between photons for quantum information processing, for which high "spectral purity" of single photons is required.An appealing scheme is employing the spontaneous four-wave mixing (SFWM) in a silicon micro-ring resonator (MRR) because it allows us to generate high-purity photons without external spectral filters.However, the purity value is limited to 0.92 due to the dispersion property of an MRR We have developed a new scheme to further increase the spectral purity from an MRR by manipulating the spectral phase distribution of the pump pulse.Via exploring several strategies on the spectral phase modulation, we found that the purity of single photon can be increased up to approximately 0.96 breaking the conventional limitation of 0.92 in a standard MRR.We further explore the experimental feasibility of the scheme toward future implementation.
Silicon waveguides are promising chi(3)-based photon pair sources. Demonstrations so far have been based on picosecond pulsed lasers. Here, we present the first investigation of photon pair generation in silicon waveguides in a continuous regime. The source is characterized by coincidence measurements. We uncover the presence of unexpected noise which had not been noticed in earlier experiments. Subsequently, we present advances towards integration of the photon pair source with other components on the chip. This is demonstrated by photon pair generation in a Sagnac loop interferometer and inside a micro-ring cavity. Comparison with the straight waveguide shows that these are promising avenues for improving the source. In particular photon pair generation in the micro-ring cavity yields a source with a spectral width of approximately 150 pm resulting in a spectral brightness increased by more than 2 orders of magnitude.
We report a comprehensive characterization of photon-pair generation by spontaneous four-wave mixing in a partially deuterated amorphous silicon (a-Si:D) waveguide for C-band heralded single-photon generation. In a 3.3-mm-long strip waveguide pumped with a continuous-wave laser at telecom wavelengths, we measure an on-chip pair-generation rate of 3.1 × 10 6 pairs/s, a maximum coincidence-to-accidental ratio of 66, and a heralded second-order correlation g H (2) (0)=0.058±0.002, with these values obtained at different pump powers. We also demonstrate, to the best of our knowledge, the first observation of time-energy entanglement from an amorphous silicon waveguide, with a Franson interference visibility of 77±5%. The power scaling of the singles and accidental coincidences indicates a significant noise contribution that currently limits the source performance. Our results identify a-Si:D as a promising nonlinear platform for bright, integrated photon-pair sources and future hybrid quantum photonic circuits.
Photon sources are fundamental components for any quantum photonic technology. The ability to generate high count-rate and low-noise correlated photon pairs via spontaneous parametric down-conversion using bulk crystals has been the cornerstone of modern quantum optics. However, future practical quantum technologies will require a scalable integration approach, and waveguide-based photon sources with high-count rate and low-noise characteristics will be an essential part of chip-based quantum technologies. Here, we demonstrate photon pair generation through spontaneous four-wave mixing in a silicon micro-ring resonator, reporting separately a maximum coincidence-to-accidental (CAR) ratio of 602 ± 37 (for a generation rate of 827kHz), and a maximum photon pair generation rate of 123 MHz ± 11 kHz (with a CAR value of 37). To overcome free-carrier related performance degradations we have investigated reverse biased p-i-n structures, demonstrating an improvement in the pair generation rate by a factor of up to 2 with negligible impact on CAR.
Here we show photon pair generation from ring resonator and waveguide structures in a hybrid silicon-BTO on insulator platform with a pulsed pump. Our analysis of single photon and coincidence generation rates show that Spontaneous Four-Wave Mixing is comparable to that expected from SOI devices of similar characteristics and find a γeffγ_{eff}γeff​ of (14.7 ±\pm± 1.3) and (2.0 ±\pm± 0.3) MHz/mW2^{2}2 for ring resonator and waveguide structures respectively.