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

Quantum Coherent Control in Pulsed Waveguide Optomechanics for Photon-Phonon Entanglement via Brillouin Scattering

Changlong Zhu, Junyin Zhang, Christian Wolff, Birgit Stiller

Published Jun 26, 2023• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Brillouin optomechanics provides a way to coherently control traveling acoustic excitations in waveguides system, which enables the manipulation and processing of classical and quantum information. Although Brillouin optomechanics has been largely investigated in the steady-state regime using continuous waves [1]–[3], waveguide experiments are often realized by using optical pulses for example for Brillouin-based memory [4], [5]. This requires a dynamic framework treatment for the temporal domain including the noise dynamics.

DOI
10.1109/cleo/europe-eqec57999.2023.10231512

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Brillouin optomechanics provides a way to coherently control traveling acoustic excitations in waveguides system, which enables the manipulation and processing of classical and quantum information. Although Brillouin optomechanics has been largely investigated in the steady-state regime using continuous waves [1]–[3], waveguide experiments are often realized by using optical pulses for example for Brillouin-based memory [4], [5]. This requires a dynamic framework treatment for the temporal domain including the noise dynamics.
Storage and retrieval of optical quantum states are key elements for the realization of quantum communication and quantum networks. Here, we propose to realize a memory for light states in Brillouin-active waveguides. It is achieved by transferring quantum states between optical photons and acoustic phonons via Brillouin anti-Stokes scattering. By controlling the optoacoustic interaction with pulsed pumps, we demonstrate that it is possible to write, store, and read out of optical quantum states with high fidelity in state-of-the-art Brillouin-active waveguides.
Quantum memories for optical states are essential resources for quantum communication and information processing. We propose a quantum memory protocol based on coherent photon-phonon transduction in a Brillouin-active optical waveguide supporting traveling acoustic modes. A pulsed pump drives an effective beam-splitter interaction between optical and acoustic fields, enabling the mapping of a propagating optical quantum state onto a traveling phononic excitation and its subsequent retrieval on demand. Using a continuum optoacoustic model, we show that the protocol enables broadband quantum state storage in a distributed medium without relying on discrete cavity modes. Analytical and numerical results demonstrate high-fidelity storage and retrieval of squeezed and entangled states under experimentally realistic parameters. The memory bandwidth is set by the Brillouin interaction and can reach hundreds of MHz. Our results identify continuum Brillouin optomechanical systems as a scalable platform for broadband quantum memories and multimode quantum signal processing.
Entanglement in hybrid quantum systems comprised of fundamentally different degrees of freedom, such as light and mechanics, is of interest for a wide range of applications in quantum technologies. Here, we propose to engineer bipartite entanglement between traveling acoustic phonons in a Brillouin active solid state system and the accompanying light wave. The effect is achieved by applying optical pump pulses to state-of-the-art waveguides, exciting a Brillouin Stokes process. This pulsed approach, in a system operating in a regime orthogonal to standard optomechanical setups, allows for the generation of entangled photon-phonon pairs, resilient to thermal fluctuations. We propose an experimental platform where readout of the optoacoustics entanglement is done by the simultaneous detection of Stokes and anti-Stokes photons in a two-pump configuration. The proposed mechanism presents an important feature in that it does not require initial preparation of the quantum ground state of the phonon mode.
In order to deliberately control the flow of optically encoded information, optical storage is an indispensable tool, but it must maintain all the advantages of optics, such as i.e. the coherence, the bandwidth and capacity. An elegant approach to this problem is to coherently transfer the information from optical to acoustic waves via an opto-mechanical nonlinearity, such as stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS). The basic concept was first demonstrated in highly nonlinear fiber by Zhu et al. [1]. Recently, we experimentally demonstrated the coherence of this memory concept by encoding different amplitude and phase levels in an integrated photonic circuit [2] and the compatibility with wavelength division multiplexing [3]. This concept is based on a straight waveguide without the need of a structural resonance as an opto-mechanical resonator or a photonic crystal cavity. Therefore, the memory operation can be arbitrarily positioned on the photonic chip and can even be repeated and cascaded several times, via external control light pulses.
Stimulated Brillouin scattering describes a way to excite coherent acoustic phonons solely by optically forces in integrated waveguides. It was shown recently that one can use these acoustic phonons to store and delay optical signals [1], [2]. The optical information is resonantly transferred to a coherent acoustic phonon and is then transferred back to the optical domain by a delayed optical retrieval pulse. The storage time, however, is so far limited to a few nanoseconds, determined by the lifetime of the acoustic phonon. A delay of several nanoseconds might be enough for delaying some high speed signals, however increasing the delay time beyond the acoustic lifetime would enable new possibilities for phonon-based on-chip optical signal processing.
Recent experiments demonstrating storage of optical pulses in acoustic phonons via stimulated Brillouin scattering raise questions about the spectral and temporal capacities of such protocols and the limitations of the theoretical frameworks routinely used to describe them. We consider the dynamics of photon-phonon scattering induced by optical pulses with temporal widths comparable to the period of acoustic oscillations. We revisit the widely adopted classical formalism of coupled modes and demonstrate its breakdown. We use a simple extension to the formulation and find potentially measurable consequences in the dynamics of Brillouin experiments involving ultrashort pulses.