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Energy-Efficient Design of a Fast All-Optical Single-Photon Switch with Pre-Emphasis Pump Scheme

Fabian Ruf, Lars Nielsen, Nicolas Volet, Martijn J. R. Heck

Published Jan 1, 2023• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Fast and ultralow-loss switching is crucial for optical quantum communication and computation. All-optical switches with gigahertz bandwidths that can be fabricated in a scalable foundry-based photonic integration platform are optimized for energy-efficient operation.
DOI
10.1364/cleo_si.2023.sm3p.7

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•Sep 1, 2013•0 citations
Efficient single-photon routing and switching are crucial for optical quantum computing and communication. For this purpose, all-optical switches are designed for gigahertz bandwidths. The switching mechanism is based on the optical Kerr effect via cross-phase modulation (CPM) of the single-photon signal by a strong 1550-nm pump pulse. For energy-efficient switching, this nonlinear effect is exploited in a microresonator that can either be used directly as an intensity switch in a typical add–drop configuration or as a phase shifter in a Mach–Zehnder interferometer (MZI) structure. To speed up resonance build-up and quenching, a pre-emphasis build and an off-resonance wipe pulse are used. The proposed designs are verified by traveling-wave simulations which demonstrate that 0.1 dB insertion loss and ~1 ns switching windows can be achieved. For a scalable out-of-the-lab transfer, we investigate the feasibility of the proposed switch designs for fabrication in a mature photonic integrated circuit (PIC) platform. In particular, silicon nitride PICs have demonstrated record-low losses which makes them suitable for single-photon applications. By parametric modelling of the microresonator’s directional couplers based on Lumerical EME and 2.5-dimensional varFDTD simulations, the required power transmission coefficients for both signal and pump wavelength can be achieved. This results in an all-optical switch design ready for fabrication in a commercial PIC foundry which can potentially enable scalable architectures for quantum photonic applications.
Fast and ultra-low loss single-photon switching and routing are essential for photonic quantum computation and communication. To address this need in a scalable fashion, all-optical switches that can be fabricated in an ultra-low loss and mature Si3_{3}3​N4_{4}4​photonic integrated circuit (PIC) foundry platform are designed and optimized for sub-ns switching times suitable for deterministic quantum-dot single-photon sources. The working principle relies on cross-phase modulation (XPM) of the single photons with a 1550-nm pump pulse and is enhanced by a ring resonator. Two different designs of the primary switch element are theoretically studied, namely a ring resonator intensity switch (RRIS) based on resonance shifting due to XPM and a ring resonator phase switch (RRPS) acting as an all-optical phase shifter in a Mach–Zehnder interferometer. As a novel approach to speed up the switching, chirped pre-emphasis and wipe sections for the pump pulses are utilized. A design tool is established from analytical expressions and serves as starting point for further optimization using a dedicated travelling-wave model (TWM). The TWM demonstrates the feasibility of both designs to be driven by either the proposed pre-emphasis pulse shape or a train of chirped Gaussian pulses. While the RRPS turns out to require less pump energy, its operation is more sensitive to pump-power fluctuations. Insertion losses below 0.1 dB and a power consumption below 5 nJ at 1 GHz switching rates for both configurations prove the potential of this concept for scalable quantum photonic applications.
A crucial component of photonic quantum information processing platforms is the ability to modulate, route, convert, and switch quantum states of light noiselessly with low insertion loss. For instance, a high-speed, low-loss optical switch is crucial for scaling quantum photonic systems that rely on measurement-based feed-forward approaches. Such a device will also ideally be capable of operating on photon-number states, which can act as non-Gaussian resources. Here, we demonstrate ultrafast all-optical switching of heralded photon-number states, of up to 6 photons, using the optical Kerr effect in a single-mode fiber. A local birefringence is created by a high-intensity pump pulse at a center wavelength of 1030 nm which overlaps temporally with the 1550 nm photons in the fiber. A switching efficiency of $>$99 % is reached with a resolution of 2.3 ps, an insertion loss of 2.27±0.082.27\pm0.082.27±0.08 dB, and a signal-to-noise ratio of 32,000.
Abstract : All-optical switching is crucial for efficient optical communications. The quantum Zeno effect can be used to induce or inhibit optical switching through a variety of processes, all of which share the common characteristic that the evolution of one quantum state into another be inhibited or induced based on the presence or absence of a controllable and continuous quantum measurement. By utilizing this effect, it is the goal of this project to design and construct ultra-low power dissipation, ultra-low volume, fast all-optical switches. In particular, a fundamental limit in existing all-optical switching devices is due to the photon loss resulting from signal-pump coupling. When extended to the quantum domain, this photon loss additionally causes the quantum states of photonic signals to collapse (i.e., decohere). By using the quantum Zeno effect (QZE), it is possible to realize interaction-free switching that eliminates direct signal-pump coupling i.e., QZE for all-optical switching.