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

Ultrafast Single-Photon Detection based on Optical Kerr Gates

Assegid M. Flatae, Abdul-Hamid Fattah, Amr Farrag, Mario Agio

Published Jun 21, 2021• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The generation and efficient detection of ultrafast single photons is at the forefront of modern optical science, and it offers an unprecedented set of capabilities, for instance, in the area of quantum information science, high-sensitivity detection, and remote sensing [1] - [3] . In addition, it provides a powerful analysis tool in the life sciences at the single-molecule level [4] . The detection of single photons is currently restricted by the limited time resolution (a few picoseconds) of the available single-photon detectors.

DOI
10.1109/cleo/europe-eqec52157.2021.9541932

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The generation and efficient detection of ultrafast single photons is at the forefront of modern optical science, and it offers an unprecedented set of capabilities, for instance, in the area of quantum information science, high-sensitivity detection, and remote sensing [1] - [3] . In addition, it provides a powerful analysis tool in the life sciences at the single-molecule level [4] . The detection of single photons is currently restricted by the limited time resolution (a few picoseconds) of the available single-photon detectors.
The ultrafast detection of single photons is currently restricted by the limited time resolution (a few picoseconds) of the available single-photon detectors. Optical gates offer a faster time resolution, but so far they have been applied mostly to ensembles of emitters. Here, we demonstrate through a semi-analytical model that the ultrafast time-resolved detection of single quantum emitters can be possible using an optical Kerr shutter at gigahertz rates under focused illumination. This technique provides sub-picosecond time resolution, while keeping a gate efficiency at around 85%. These findings lay the ground for future experimental investigations on the ultrafast dynamics of single quantum emitters, with implications for quantum nanophotonics and molecular physics.
In the past decades, generating single photons on demand with well defined quantum states and detecting them after photon-photon or photon-matter interaction are central to the area of quantum optics and quantum information science. The ability to detect light efficiently at the single photon level offers unprecedented opportunities for a wide range of applications, including long-distance quantum key distribution, light detection and ranging, photonic quantum computing, weak light detection for astronomy and bio-imaging.
We develop quantum devices for the generation, manipulation and detection of light at the single photon level. Quantum dot devices allow for the generation of single and entangled photons at various frequencies including telecom wavelengths. We also develop single photon detectors with high efficiency based on NbTIN superconducting nanostructures, low noise and high time resolution to enable a range of applications including quantum communication, quantum sensing and integrated photonics. To allow for complex systems, integrated quantum optics circuits where we combine quantum sources and superconducting detectors are under development.
Ultrafast quantum optics with time-frequency entangled photons is at the forefront of progress towards future quantum technologies. However, to unravel the time domain structure of entangled photons and exploit fully their rich dimensionality, a single-photon detector with sub-picosecond temporal resolution is required. Here, we present ultrafast single-photon detection using an optical Kerr gate composed of a photonic crystal fiber (PCF) placed inside a Sagnac interferometer. A near-rectangle temporal waveform of a heralded single-photon generated via spontaneous parametric down-conversion is measured with temporal resolution as high as 224 ± 9 fs. The large nonlinearity and long effective interaction length of the PCF enables maximum detection efficiency to be achieved with only 30.5 mW gating pulse average power, demonstrating an order-of-magnitude improvement compared to optical gating with sum-frequency generation. Also, we discuss the trade-off relationship between detection efficiency and temporal resolution.
The modern information era is built upon technologies such as telecommunications, cryptography, high-performance computing, and, more recently, artificial intelligence (AI). At the core of all these systems are electronic circuits, whose performance is fundamentally limited by the physical speed of electrons. Photonic technologies, by contrast, rely on light quanta—single photons—that propagate orders of magnitude faster and offer intrinsically higher bandwidth and enhanced security. Replacing electronic components with optical counterparts promises major advances in communication speed, data transfer, secure information processing, and quantum technologies. Central to these developments are ultrabright single-photon sources (SPSs), including quantum dots and color centers in solid-state hosts. However, the brightest SPSs currently require cryogenic temperatures, limiting their practicality in real-world applications. This dissertation proposes an alternative route toward achieving bright, room temperature single-photon emission by exploiting high-repetition-rate excitation. Advances in laser technology now allow solid-state lasers to operate at gigahertz repetition rates. By combining such excitation with hybrid quantum systems—where a quantum emitter is coupled to a nanophotonic structure to enhance its radiative emission through the Purcell effect—ultrabright SPSs can, in principle, be realized at room temperature. At these high radiative rates, however, the fluorescence lifetime becomes extremely short, well below the temporal resolution of conventional single-photon detectors, which are further constrained by cost, cryogenic requirements, bulkiness, and limited synchronization capabilities at gigahertz rates. To address this limitation, this dissertation demonstrates an optical Kerr gate (OKG) operating at a 1-GHz repetition rate with sub-picosecond temporal resolution. The OKG is a third-order (χ(3)) nonlinear optical process that does not require phase matching conditions and is therefore suitable for broadband fluorescence detection. Kerr gating was achieved using two distinct Kerr media: bulk bismuth-borosilicate (BBS) glass and two-dimensional thin graphite films. In both cases, OKG signals were generated using sub-nanojoule gate-pulse energies—remarkably low compared with traditional OKG implementations that rely on millijoule-level amplified pulses, more than six orders of magnitude higher. The temporal resolution achieved was 175 ± 1 fs with BBS glass (∼ 3% gating efficiency) and 141 ± 6 fs with thin graphite films (∼ 10% efficiency). This compact, room-temperature technique requires no cryocooler, vacuum system, or bulky amplification stages. The demonstrated OKG platform can be directly integrated into a standard confocal fluorescence microscope, enabling ultrafast fluorescence measurements from quantum emitters and paving the way for practical room-temperature ultrabright SPSs.