In recent years, quantum communication has received extensive attention due to its high security of transmitted information. Quantum key distribution (QKD), an important branch of quantum information, is developing rapidly and has been gradually moving toward practicality and networking. The use of phase coding through fiber optic channels is the basis for the implementation of QKD systems. In QKD systems, electro-optical modulation techniques are mainly used to change the photon phase through phase modulators to realize the phase coding scheme. Among them, lithium niobate is a common material for making phase modulators in QKD systems. Lithium niobate (LN) crystals are an optical material with excellent acousto-optical and electro-optical properties. It has good physical and chemical stability, a wide optical low-loss window, a large electro-optical coefficient and an excellent second-order nonlinear effect. It has a wide range of applications in high-speed electro-optical tuning, holographic storage, nonlinear frequency conversion, etc. Thin-film lithium niobate (LNOI), as a new integrated optical material, can well combine the excellent electro-optical, acousto-optical and nonlinear properties of the material with a compact optical waveguide. It also has the advantages of a small waveguide cross-section size, high electric field density, strong nonlinear effect, low half-wave voltage length product, and small size. It has significant advantages in the integration of optoelectronic devices. In the phase-coded QKD system, the coding object of the information is the phase of the optical signal. The polarization state of the optical signal can have a serious impact on the system. The phase-encoded QKD system based on the Faraday-Michaelson interference loop is able to self-compensate for the polarization variations in the system to remove the relevant effects of polarization variations on the QKD system. The application of a phase modulator based on thin film lithium niobate preparation in quantum key distribution can effectively enhance the rate of the quantum key distribution system. However, there is still a need to study the transmission and modulation characteristics of LNOI waveguides on polarized optical signals. In this paper, we develop a phase modulator based on thin-film lithium niobate for high-speed QKD systems. Simulation and analysis of the polarization mode of the optical signal transmitted in the optical waveguide. Test and study the transmission loss and modulation efficiency difference of a thin-film lithium niobate optical waveguide for TE and TM polarization state optical signals. To build a test system for application to the measurement and modulation test of the polarization state of optical signals in a high-speed phase-encoded QKD system.
In recent years, quantum communication has received extensive attention due to its high security of transmitted information. Quantum key distribution (QKD), an important branch of quantum information, is developing rapidly and has been gradually moving toward practicality and networking. The use of phase coding through fiber optic channels is the basis for the implementation of QKD systems. In QKD systems, electro-optical modulation techniques are mainly used to change the photon phase through phase modulators to realize the phase coding scheme. Among them, lithium niobate is a common material for making phase modulators in QKD systems. Lithium niobate (LN) crystals are an optical material with excellent acousto-optical and electro-optical properties. It has good physical and chemical stability, a wide optical low-loss window, a large electro-optical coefficient and an excellent second-order nonlinear effect. It has a wide range of applications in high-speed electro-optical tuning, holographic storage, nonlinear frequency conversion, etc. Thin-film lithium niobate (LNOI), as a new integrated optical material, can well combine the excellent electro-optical, acousto-optical and nonlinear properties of the material with a compact optical waveguide. It also has the advantages of a small waveguide cross-section size, high electric field density, strong nonlinear effect, low half-wave voltage length product, and small size. It has significant advantages in the integration of optoelectronic devices. In the phase-coded QKD system, the coding object of the information is the phase of the optical signal. The polarization state of the optical signal can have a serious impact on the system. The phase-encoded QKD system based on the Faraday-Michaelson interference loop is able to self-compensate for the polarization variations in the system to remove the relevant effects of polarization variations on the QKD system. The application of a phase modulator based on thin film lithium niobate preparation in quantum key distribution can effectively enhance the rate of the quantum key distribution system. However, there is still a need to study the transmission and modulation characteristics of LNOI waveguides on polarized optical signals. In this paper, we develop a phase modulator based on thin-film lithium niobate for high-speed QKD systems. Simulation and analysis of the polarization mode of the optical signal transmitted in the optical waveguide. Test and study the transmission loss and modulation efficiency difference of a thin-film lithium niobate optical waveguide for TE and TM polarization state optical signals. To build a test system for application to the measurement and modulation test of the polarization state of optical signals in a high-speed phase-encoded QKD system.
Lithium niobate-on-insulator (LNOI) is a leading platform for high-speed optical communication technologies owing to its large electro-optic bandwidth, which enables light modulation above 100 GHz [1]. The wide transparency window is being leveraged to produce photonic integrated circuits operating at different wavelengths, and the strong second-order nonlinearity allows efficient frequency conversion via periodic poling of the crystal on the same waveguide network [2]. LNOI has potential to revolutionise optical communication, and nonlinear conversion processes can be used to generate highly pure quantum states acting as bits of information for the next generation of optical quantum information technologies.
Ion-sliced thin-film lithium niobate (LN) compact waveguide technology has facilitated the resurgence of integrated photonics based on lithium niobate. These thin-film LN waveguides offer over an order of magnitude improvement in optical confinement, and about two orders of magnitude reduction in waveguide bending radius, compared to conventional LN waveguides. Harnessing the improved confinement, a variety of miniaturized and efficient photonic devices are demonstrated in this work. First, two types of compact electrooptic modulators are presented – microring modulators, and Mach-Zehnder modulators. Next, two distinct approaches to nonlinear optical frequency converters are implemented – periodically poled lithium niobate, and mode shape modulation (grating assisted quasi-phase matching). Following this, stochastic variations are added to the mode shape modulation approach to demonstrate random quasi-phase matching. Afterward, broadband photon-pair generation is demonstrated in the miniaturized periodically poled lithium niobate, and spectral correlations of the biphoton spectrum are reported. Finally, extensions of the aforementioned results suitable for future work are discussed.
Photonic integration in quantum communication holds significant potential for miniaturization and enabling commercial applications. Among various platforms, thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN) stands out due to its exceptional combination of high electro-optical efficiency, low propagation loss, and compact footprint. Here, we demonstrate a 2.5 GHz chip-to-chip fully integrated quantum key distribution (QKD) system based on a TFLN platform, which incorporates high-speed dual-polarization time-bin phase encoding and decoding functionalities. We achieve an extremely low quantum bit error rate of 0.53% and a secret key rate exceeding 10 Mbps over 25 km fiber spools. The design of cascaded Mach–Zehnder modulators effectively suppresses the patterning effect in high speed QKD. Notably, the TFLN chips used in both the transmitter and receiver share a similar architecture, highlighting the potential for creating a homogeneous transceiver. This work paves the way for high-speed, miniaturized QKD systems based on the lithium niobate integrated platform.
Quantum photonics has advanced rapidly and become a leading approach for developing a broad range of quantum technologies, including quantum communications, quantum information processing, quantum computing, and quantum sensing. Besides, the emerging photonic integrated circuits (PIC) technology has been widely used to implement versatile optical elements advantageous for different quantum applications. For example, PIC-based devices have functioned as building blocks, such as photonic qubit sources, linear optical circuits, modulators, and even single-photon detectors, for realizing highly integrated, large-scale quantum computing schemes. In such a powerful quantum photonic integrated circuits (QPIC) scheme, the creation, manipulation, and testing of quantum entanglement states from the generated qubits via a reconfigurable photonic circuitry are essential. Though the state-of-the-art PIC technology is established based on Si photonics due to its widely mature nanophotonic circuit (waveguide) fabrication technology supported by the existing immense semiconductor industry, Si-based PIC has limitations in implementing efficient and fast active elements that usually demand a quadratic nonlinearity. Lithium niobate (LN), renowned as “the silicon of photonics”, has long been a popular material widely used in integrated-optical and nonlinear-optical applications. A great variety of passive and active photonic elements have been realized in the LN platform. Recently, a novel material based on high-quality single-crystalline films of LN, known as thin-film LN on insulator (LNOI), has been developed and has soon drawn enormous attention for its greatly promising ability to realize nanoscale PIC/QPIC in this iconic optical material platform. In this presentation, we report our recent studies on several key LN PIC building blocks for developing novel quantum photonic sources and circuits, including highly integrated photonic-circuit periodically poled lithium niobate (PPLN) chips for photon-pair generation and manipulation, for high-dimensional frequency-entangled qudit production, for time-frequency grid-state generation, for continuous-variable squeezed vacuum state generation, and their potential applications to quantum computing/communication/sensing technology. Besides, a PP-LNOI electro-optic (EO) polarization mode converter (PMC) useful for demonstrating fast control of quantum polarization states and other LNOI circuit elements as QPIC building blocks will also be presented.
Quantum key distribution (QKD) relies on quantum state manipulation to achieve unconditionally secure key transmission. Polarization encoding, a mainstream QKD scheme, faces practical limitations due to the bulkiness and instability of discrete optical components. This work presents a polarization-encoding chip based on hybrid thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN) and silicon-on-insulator (SOI) integration, enabling dynamic control of four polarization states | R 〉, | A 〉, | L 〉, and | D 〉 with extinction ratios over 16.78 dB, using only a single thermal and electro-optic phase shifter in a compact architecture. Experimental results demonstrate that the chip achieves a secure key rate (SKR) of 328 kbps and a quantum bit error rate (QBER) of 1.96% at 100 MHz repetition rate in a 10 km fiber-based QKD system. Compared to conventional silicon-based carrier-depletion modulators (CDMs), the TFLN-SOI hybrid integration design avoids phase saturation and dynamic loss induced by carrier depletion, significantly enhancing the stability and scalability of polarization encoding.
Photonics has proven to be a very attractive platform for quantum technologies, offering key features such as high-fidelity qubits and room-temperature signal processing. Advancements in integrated photonics are expected to further enhance these capabilities as the technology evolves from few-photon architectures to systems capable of generating and processing tens, possibly hundreds, of photons, marking critical progress toward scalable quantum information processing. Although each integrated platform has its own unique advantages and limitations, thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN) photonics has recently emerged as a strong contender thanks to its low-loss characteristics, large electro-optic and nonlinear coefficients, broad transparency window, and ultra-fast modulation capabilities. In this review, we examine the latest developments in TFLN quantum photonics and identify promising directions and challenges for future research in this field.