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Advanced Quantum Technologies

Collecting Telecom Photons From Circular Bragg Gratings Using Optical Fibers and 3D Printed Micro‐Lenses

Nam Tran, Pavel Ruchka, Sara Jakovljevic, Benjamin Breiholz, Peter Gierß, Ponraj Vijayan, Carlos Jimenez, Alois Herkommer, Michael Jetter, Simone Luca Portalupi, Harald W. Giessen, Peter Michler

Published Sep 19, 2025• 2 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Abstract Deterministic sources of quantum light are becoming increasingly relevant in the development of quantum communication, particularly in deployed fiber networks. Therefore, efficient fiber‐coupled sources at telecom wavelength are highly sought after. With this goal in mind, the fiber coupling performance of quantum dots is systematically investigated in optical resonators under three experimental configurations. For the first time coupling efficiency and sensitivity are quantified to spatial displacement for single‐mode fibers with 3D printed optics on their tip, and benchmark their behavior over a commercial cleaved‐cut fiber and a standard optical setup. The reduction of the required optical elements when operating with a lensed or a bare fiber allows for an increased end‐to‐end efficiency over a standard setup. For the perspective of realizing a mechanically stable fiber‐coupled source, the spatial tolerance is precisely quantified to fiber‐cavity misalignment, observing less than count rate drop for several micrometers displacement. In the spirit of precise quantification and reproducibility, the experiments are performed on multiple photonic resonators. These results will play a key role in the future development of fiber‐coupled sources of quantum light.

DOI
10.1002/qute.202500450

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•May 7, 2021•1 citation
Abstract Deterministic sources of quantum light are becoming increasingly relevant in the development of quantum communication, particularly in deployed fiber networks. Therefore, efficient fiber‐coupled sources at telecom wavelength are highly sought after. With this goal in mind, the fiber coupling performance of quantum dots is systematically investigated in optical resonators under three experimental configurations. For the first time coupling efficiency and sensitivity are quantified to spatial displacement for single‐mode fibers with 3D printed optics on their tip, and benchmark their behavior over a commercial cleaved‐cut fiber and a standard optical setup. The reduction of the required optical elements when operating with a lensed or a bare fiber allows for an increased end‐to‐end efficiency over a standard setup. For the perspective of realizing a mechanically stable fiber‐coupled source, the spatial tolerance is precisely quantified to fiber‐cavity misalignment, observing less than count rate drop for several micrometers displacement. In the spirit of precise quantification and reproducibility, the experiments are performed on multiple photonic resonators. These results will play a key role in the future development of fiber‐coupled sources of quantum light.
Deterministic sources of quantum light are becoming increasingly relevant in the development of quantum communication, particularly in deployed fiber networks. Therefore, efficient fiber-coupled sources at telecom wavelength are highly sought after. With this goal in mind, we systematically investigate the fiber coupling performance of quantum dots in optical resonators under three experimental configurations. We quantify coupling efficiency and sensitivity to spatial displacement for single-mode fibers with 3D printed optics on their tip, and benchmark their behavior over a commercial cleaved-cut fiber and a standard optical setup. The reduction of the required optical elements when operating with a lensed or a bare fiber allows for an increased end-to-end efficiency by a factor of up to 3.0 +/- 0.2 over a standard setup. For the perspective of realizing a mechanically stable fiber-coupled source, we precisely quantify the spatial tolerance to fiber-cavity misalignment, observing less than 50 % count rate drop for several micrometers displacement. These results will play a key role in the future development of fiber-coupled sources of quantum light.
Abstract Solid‐state quantum light sources based on semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) are increasingly employed in photonic quantum information applications. Especially when moving towards real‐world scenarios outside shielded lab environments, the efficient and robust coupling of nanophotonic devices to single‐mode optical fibers offers substantial advantage by enabling “plug‐and‐play” operation. In this work we present a fiber‐pigtailed cavity‐enhanced source of flying qubits emitting single indistinguishable photons at clock‐rates exceeding 1 GHz. This is achieved by employing a fully deterministic technique for fiber‐pigtailing optimized QD‐devices based on hybrid circular Bragg grating (hCBG) micro‐cavities. The fabricated fiber‐pigtailed hCBGs feature emission lifetimes of ps, corresponding to a Purcell factor of ∼9, a suppression of multi‐photon emission events with g (2) (0) < 1 %, a photon‐indistinguishability % and a measured single‐photon coupling efficiency of 53 % in a high numerical aperture single‐mode fiber, corresponding to 1.2 Megaclicks per second at the single‐photon detectors under 80 MHz excitation clock‐rates. Furthermore, we show that high multi‐photon suppression and indistinguishability prevail for excitation clock‐rates exceeding 1 GHz. Our results show that Purcell‐enhanced fiber‐pigtailed quantum light sources based on hCBG cavities are a prime candidate for applications of quantum information science.
We present a design study of quantum light sources based on hybrid circular Bragg gratings (CBGs) for emission wavelengths in the telecom O-band. The evaluated CBG designs show photon extraction efficiencies > 95% and Purcell factors close to 30. Using simulations based on the finite element method, and considering the influence of possible fabrication imperfections, we identify optimized high-performance CBG designs which are robust against structural aberrations. In particular, full 3D simulations reveal that the designs show robustness regarding lateral deviations of the emitter position in the device well within reported positioning accuracies of deterministic fabrication technologies. Furthermore, we investigate the coupling of the evaluated hybrid CBG designs to single-mode optical fibers, which is particularly interesting for the development of practical quantum light sources. We obtain coupling efficiencies of up to 77% for off-the-shelf fibers, and again proof robustness against fabrication imperfections. Our results show prospects for the fabrication of close-to-ideal fiber-coupled quantum light sources for long distance quantum communication.
High-performance solid-state quantum sources in the telecom band are of paramount importance for long-distance quantum communications and the quantum Internet by taking advantage of a low-loss optical fiber network. Here, we demonstrate bright telecom-wavelength single-photon sources based on In(Ga)As/GaAs quantum dots (QDs) deterministically coupled to hybrid circular Bragg resonators (h-CBRs) by using a wide-field fluorescence imaging technique. The QD emissions are redshifted toward the telecom O-band by using an ultra-low InAs growth rate and an InGaAs strain reducing layer. Single-photon emissions under both continuous wave (CW) and pulsed operations are demonstrated, showing high brightness with count rates of 1.14 MHz and 0.34 MHz under saturation powers and single-photon purities of g ( 2 ) ( 0 ) = 0.11 ± 0.02 (CW) and g ( 2 ) ( 0 ) = 0.087 ± 0.003 (pulsed) at low excitation powers. A Purcell factor of 4.2 with a collection efficiency of 11.2 % ± 1 % at the first lens is extracted, suggesting efficient coupling between the QD and h-CBR. Our work contributes to the development of highly efficient single-photon sources in the telecom band for fiber-based quantum communication and future distributed quantum networks.
For quantum light sources in everyday telecommunication networks, quantum science needs to be fully transformed into quantum technology. The first necessary step to move outside a well-controlled lab environment requires the use of quantum light sources operating in the technologically relevant telecom O- and C-band. This can be provided using epitaxial quantum dots as deterministic sources of quantum light. Particularly intriguing is that emitters operating at telecom wavelengths are rapidly catching up with their short wavelength counterparts in terms of performances. Here, we make a decisive step forward in the development of quantum communication networks: a state-of-the-art source of quantum light, a semiconductor quantum dot (QD), with record coincidence rate for entangled photon emission in the telecom C-band, is operated inside an optimized rack-based setup. This setup includes a tunable pulsed laser for the QD excitation (from quasi- to fully resonant excitation), all optics for the excitation filtering, and QD signal coupling into single-mode fibers. Overall, the setup allows for above 50%50\%50% transmission for both exciton and biexciton photons. These results show that quantum dots-based telecom light sources can now be transported and integrated into existing fiber infrastructures, an important step to demonstrate the feasibility of the upcoming quantum internet.
Deterministic solid-state quantum light sources are key building blocks in photonic quantum technologies. While several proof-of-principle experiments of quantum communication using such sources have been realized, all of them required bulky setups. Here, we evaluate for the first time the performance of a compact and stand-alone fiber-coupled single-photon source emitting in the telecom O-band (1321 1321\,1321nm) for its application in quantum key distribution (QKD). For this purpose, we developed a compact 19'' rack module including a deterministically fiber-coupled quantum dot single-photon source integrated into a Stirling cryocooler, a pulsed diode laser for driving the quantum dot, and a fiber-based spectral filter. We further employed this compact quantum light source in a QKD testbed designed for polarization coding via the BB84 protocol resulting in g(2)(0)=0.10±0.01g^{(2)}(0) = 0.10\pm0.01g(2)(0)=0.10±0.01 and a raw key rate of up to (4.72±0.13) (4.72\pm0.13)\,(4.72±0.13)kHz using an external laser for excitation. In this setting we investigate the achievable performance expected in full implementations of QKD. Using 2D temporal filtering on receiver side, we evaluate optimal parameter settings for different QKD transmission scenarios taking also finite key size effects into account. Using optimized parameter sets for the temporal acceptance time window, we predict a maximal tolerable loss of 23.19 23.19\,23.19dB. Finally, we compare our results to previous QKD systems using quantum dot single-photon sources. Our study represents an important step forward in the development of fiber-based quantum-secured communication networks exploiting sub-Poissonian quantum light sources.