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Applied Physics Reviews

Single-photon generation and manipulation in quantum nanophotonics

Guangxin Liu, Wenjie Zhou, Dmitrii Gromyko, Ding Huang, Zhaogang Dong, Renming Liu, Juan‐Feng Zhu, Jingfeng Liu, Cheng‐Wei Qiu, Lin Wu

Published Jan 24, 2025• 30 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Developing reliable and efficient single-photon sources is crucial for advancing quantum technologies, relying on nonlinear frequency conversion or spontaneous emission from individual quantum emitters. While different types of single-photon sources excel in specific applications, none meet all criteria for an “ideal” source: exceptional brightness, high purity, and indistinguishability. To address this challenge, coupling single-photon emitters with designer nanostructures can significantly enhance emission performance, a pivotal area in quantum nanophotonics. This review summarizes recent advancements over the past decade in generating and manipulating single photons, emphasizing the pivotal role of nanostructure coupling. Single-photon emission systems—such as nonlinear crystals, solid-state defects, quantum dots, carbon nanotubes, and two-dimensional materials—are categorized quantitatively based on their ability to achieve high purity, indistinguishability, and brightness, presented in a three-dimensional technology map. Furthermore, nanostructure engineering is showcased for manipulating properties such as emission direction, polarization, chirality, and entanglement of single photons. By elucidating these critical aspects, this review aims to advance understanding of how advancements in nanostructured environments promise to shape the future of single-photon generation and manipulation within quantum nanophotonics.

DOI
10.1063/5.0227350

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Developing reliable and efficient single-photon sources is crucial for advancing quantum technologies, relying on nonlinear frequency conversion or spontaneous emission from individual quantum emitters. While different types of single-photon sources excel in specific applications, none meet all criteria for an “ideal” source: exceptional brightness, high purity, and indistinguishability. To address this challenge, coupling single-photon emitters with designer nanostructures can significantly enhance emission performance, a pivotal area in quantum nanophotonics. This review summarizes recent advancements over the past decade in generating and manipulating single photons, emphasizing the pivotal role of nanostructure coupling. Single-photon emission systems—such as nonlinear crystals, solid-state defects, quantum dots, carbon nanotubes, and two-dimensional materials—are categorized quantitatively based on their ability to achieve high purity, indistinguishability, and brightness, presented in a three-dimensional technology map. Furthermore, nanostructure engineering is showcased for manipulating properties such as emission direction, polarization, chirality, and entanglement of single photons. By elucidating these critical aspects, this review aims to advance understanding of how advancements in nanostructured environments promise to shape the future of single-photon generation and manipulation within quantum nanophotonics.
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Quantum light sources are essential building blocks for many quantum technologies, enabling secure communication, powerful computing, and precise sensing and imaging. Recent advancements have witnessed a significant shift toward the utilization of "flat" optics with thickness at subwavelength scales for the development of quantum light sources. This approach offers notable advantages over conventional bulky counterparts, including compactness, scalability, and improved efficiency, along with added functionalities. This review focuses on the recent advances in leveraging flat optics to generate quantum light sources. Specifically, the generation of entangled photon pairs through spontaneous parametric down-conversion in nonlinear metasurfaces, and single photon emission from quantum emitters including quantum dots and color centers in 3D and 2D materials are explored. The review covers theoretical principles, fabrication techniques, and properties of these sources, with particular emphasis on the enhanced generation and engineering of quantum light sources using optical resonances supported by nanostructures. The diverse application range of these sources is discussed and the current challenges and perspectives in the field are highlighted.
The purpose of this issue is to highlight the recent progress and trends in the development of novel nano- and quantum photonic technologies. The articles published in this issue cover a broad range of areas, including: 1) novel nanophotonic light sources-both classical (lasers) and nonclassical (single- and entangled photon sources); 2) nonlinear optics in nanophotonic structures; 3) quantum optics and quantum information processing based on nanophotonics platform; 4) efficient devices for optical interconnects and optical information processing based on novel nanophotonic structures. This issue contains 25 papers, including eight invited, authored by well-established research groups and promising scientists from all over the world. The invited articles include extended reviews on entangled photon generation using silicon nanowire waveguides; cavity quantum electrodynamics and lasing oscillation in single quantum dot photonic crystal nanocavity systems; quantum plasmonic circuits; theoretical analysis of few-photon single-atom cavity quantum electrodynamics; semiconductor quantum dot micropillar microcavities for quantum optics in solid state; nanofiber-based optical trapping of cold neutral atoms; switching and counting with atomic vapors in photonic-crystal fibers; and production of multiple diamondbased single-photon sources. The contributed articles cover a broad variety of key nanophotonics and quantum photonics research areas, including recently obtained results on bright single-photon emission from a quantum dot in a circular Bragg grating microcavity, supercontinuum generation in nanostructured silicon waveguides, electrically driven photonic crystal nanocavity devices, and silicon quantum dots.
Single quantum emitters are critical components for many future quantum information technologies. Novel active material systems have been developed and transitioned into engineering efforts at nanoscale. Here, we review recent progress of diverse quantum emitters and their optical properties, including fluorescent point defect in bulk and single nanocrystal, two-dimensional materials, and quantum dots (QDs). Remarkable progress has also been made in controlling spontaneous emission by utilizing the local density of optical states in dielectric photonic nanostructures. We focus on the enhanced light–matter interaction between the emitter and cavity, enabling the realization of efficient and fast single photon sources.
Single photons enable the distribution of quantum information over large distances and thus play a major role in quantum technologies such as communication and computing. Solid-state emitters are practical and efficient sources of single photons that can be manufactured in large numbers. When combined with a spin, the resulting spin-photon interfaces can store quantum states for extended periods and serve as the basis for quantum networks and repeaters. Among the many host materials explored over the past few decades, silicon stands out for its advanced nanofabrication, the maturity of its integrated photonics and microelectronics, and its high isotopic purity, which leads to exceptionally long spin coherence. These properties position silicon single-photon emitters and spin-photon interfaces among the most promising hardware platforms for implementing quantum networks and distributed quantum information processors. This review summarizes the current state of the art and open challenges towards coherent single-photon sources and scalable spin-photon interfaces based on color centers and erbium dopants in nanophotonic silicon structures.
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