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Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics Europe & European Quantum Electronics Conference (CLEO/Europe-EQEC)

Ultra-Wide Photon-Pair Source in the Mid-Infrared on a Silicon Chip

Lawrence M. Rosenfeld, Sabine Wollmann, Jonathan C. F. Matthews, John Rarity

Published Jun 21, 2021• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Photon-pair sources are essential for complex and scalable quantum photonics circuits. Silicon photonics offers a scalable and low cost platform with a mature fabrication technology for realising this [1] . Recent demonstrations of photon-pair generation and quantum interference in the 2.1 µm band have paved the way towards mid-infrared integrated photon sources [2] , where many gases can be sensed with unique ‘fingerprint’ absorption lines. Producing long wavelength photons with large spectral detunings from the pump, utilising anomalous group-velocity dispersion and type-0 phase matching, is hard due to the highly dispersive nature of nanoscale silicon waveguides.

DOI
10.1109/cleo/europe-eqec52157.2021.9542533

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•Jan 1, 2018•1 citation
Photon-pair sources are essential for complex and scalable quantum photonics circuits. Silicon photonics offers a scalable and low cost platform with a mature fabrication technology for realising this [1] . Recent demonstrations of photon-pair generation and quantum interference in the 2.1 µm band have paved the way towards mid-infrared integrated photon sources [2] , where many gases can be sensed with unique ‘fingerprint’ absorption lines. Producing long wavelength photons with large spectral detunings from the pump, utilising anomalous group-velocity dispersion and type-0 phase matching, is hard due to the highly dispersive nature of nanoscale silicon waveguides.
Quantum silicon photonics must overcome considerable loss engineering challenges before it can scale to the millions of physical qubits required for fault tolerant quantum computation [1] . The first such challenge is the intrinsic two-photon absorption (TPA), present in silicon at telecommunications wavelengths. This places fundamental limits on the heralding or Klyshko efficiency of silicon photon-pair sources based on spontaneous four-wave mixing (SFWM) [2] . We have recently shown that by moving to a pump wavelength beyond 2-microns, in the mid-infrared (MIR), TPA in silicon can be curtailed, and by using 340-nm thick silicon waveguides, phase matching can be achieved for efficient SFWM [2] .
Summary form only given. Quantum computing technology is at a crossroads. The technological route we choose must scale without limit. For quantum optics to play a part, optical loss, miniaturisation, and manufacturability must be simultaneously addressed. In quantum optics, a loss of a single photon is a loss of irreplaceable quantum information. Macroscale optics offers exceptionally low loss, and high performance, but has no hope to scale to thousands or millions of modes. Microscale optics, and silicon photonics in particular, offer exceptional miniaturisation and large-scale manufacturability, but pay a high price in loss [1]. We propose -and realise -a new platform for quantum optics: we retain the scale and manufacturability of silicon photonics, but extirpate its loss, both linear and nonlinear. We shift silicon quantum photonics to the short-wave infrared (SWYR), centred on 2.1 microns wavelength, on the optical end of the mid-infrared spectrum [2]. The minimum requirements for any quantum optical platform are: to source quantum-correlated light, and to demonstrate high-quality quantum interference. Here, we do both: we engineer an on-chip photon-pair source, and interfere the light from two such sources in a time-reversed Hong-Ou-Mandel (HOM) measurement [3]. In so doing, we show the first photon-pair source with all fields in the mid-infrared, and the first quantum interference between mid-infrared photons. We coherently pump both on-chip sources and thermally vary the on-chip phase, (j) to perform a time-reversed HOM interference measurement [3] with an accidental-subtracted visibility of V = 99.1 ± 0.9%.
Applied quantum optics stands to revolutionise many aspects of information technology, provided performance can be maintained when scaled up. Silicon quantum photonics satisfies the scaling requirements of miniaturisation and manufacturability, but at 1.55 µm it suffers from problematic linear and nonlinear loss. Here we show that, by translating silicon quantum photonics to the mid-infrared, a new quantum optics platform is created which can simultaneously maximise manufacturability and miniaturisation, while reducing loss. We demonstrate the necessary platform components: photon-pair generation, single-photon detection, and high-visibility quantum interference, all at wavelengths beyond 2 µm. Across various regimes, we observe a maximum net coincidence rate of 448 ± 12 Hz, a coincidence-to-accidental ratio of 25.7 ± 1.1, and, a net two-photon quantum interference visibility of 0.993 ± 0.017. Mid-infrared silicon quantum photonics will bring new quantum applications within reach.
Silicon photonics in the mid-infrared is a promising platform for quantum technologies. Previous demonstrations of silicon mid-infrared quantum optics have used a 340 nm silicon layer height. In this work, we use industry-standard 220 nm silicon to implement a novel, to the best of our knowledge, photon-pair source with a peak coincidence-to-accidental ratio (CAR) of 20.9±2.9 at a net measured rate of 0.63±0.02 Hz and an inferred source efficiency of 2.85±0.04 MHz W −2 . Finally, we report the first integrated mid-infrared entanglement, generating a Bell state with a fidelity of F =94±2%.
Chip-scale integrated photonic circuits provide an attractive platform for the implementation of many quantum photonic technologies ranging from precise metrology to secure communication and quantum computation. In particular, silicon photonic platforms support micron-scale nonlinear optical sources of non-classical light which can be mass manufactured using the robust fabrication processes pioneered by the CMOS microelectronics industry. Integration of these quantum photonic sources with high-performance classical photonic devices on the same chip is required for truly scalable quantum information technologies. Integrated nonlinear resonators are investigated as sources of quantum mechanically correlated photon pair sources. An all-order dispersion engineering method is presented as a robust design synthesis for micoring sources. In addition, a novel concept of coupled mode dispersion compensation is proposed and demonstrated, providing significantly improved performance characteristics of resonant four-wave mixing sources. Next a photon pair source is demonstrated in a commercial CMOS microelectronics process opening the door to future integration of quantum photonics with electronic logic and control circuits. Classical nonlinear optical measurements of stimulated four-wave mixing are used for the first time to accurately predict the quantum correlations from the same device operating in the photon pair regime. Next the first demonstration of fully on-chip pump rejection is demonstrated with over 95 dB pump extinction improving the figures of merit from previous demonstrations by multiple orders of magnitude, including losses, detected pair rates and size. Finally, proposals for introducing novel degrees of freedom provided by an integrated platform are presented for further improving the performance of both photon pair and classical nonlinear optical sources.