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Optics Express

Suppressing parasitic processes in frequency-degenerate photon pair generation via cascaded up- and down-conversion in thin film lithium niobate

Olivia Hefti, Marco Clementi, Enrico Melani, Jean-Étienne Tremblay, Andrea Volpini, Yeşim Koyaz, Homa Zarebidaki, Iván Prieto, Olivier Dubochet, Daniele Bajoni, Charles Caër, Hamed Sattari, Camille‐Sophie Brès, Mattéo Galli, Davide Grassani

Published Jun 15, 2026• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Frequency-degenerate photon pairs generated using nonlinear photonic integrated devices are a crucial resource for scalable quantum information processing and metrology. However, their realization based on dual-pump spontaneous four-wave mixing is hindered by unwanted parametric processes occurring within the same phase matching band, which degrade the signal-to-noise ratio and reduce the purity of the associated quantum states. Here, we propose a dual-pump scheme to produce frequency-degenerate photon pairs, based on cascaded sum-frequency generation and spontaneous parametric down-conversion occurring within a single waveguide, while strongly suppressing parasitic photon pair generation from single-pump processes. This approach significantly simplifies the design compared to microresonator-based methods and enables both pumping and collection of photon pairs entirely in the telecom band. We experimentally validate the concept in a layer-poled thin film lithium niobate waveguide, achieving frequency-degenerate photon pair generation with a brightness of (1.0±0.3)×10 5 Hz nm −1 mW −2 and a 40 dB suppression of unwanted single-pump processes.

DOI
10.1364/oe.587612

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Optics Express•Dec 5, 2020•23 citations
Frequency-degenerate photon pairs generated using nonlinear photonic integrated devices are a crucial resource for scalable quantum information processing and metrology. However, their realization based on dual-pump spontaneous four-wave mixing is hindered by unwanted parametric processes occurring within the same phase matching band, which degrade the signal-to-noise ratio and reduce the purity of the associated quantum states. Here, we propose a dual-pump scheme to produce frequency-degenerate photon pairs, based on cascaded sum-frequency generation and spontaneous parametric down-conversion occurring within a single waveguide, while strongly suppressing parasitic photon pair generation from single-pump processes. This approach significantly simplifies the design compared to microresonator-based methods and enables both pumping and collection of photon pairs entirely in the telecom band. We experimentally validate the concept in a layer-poled thin film lithium niobate waveguide, achieving frequency-degenerate photon pair generation with a brightness of (1.0±0.3)×10 5 Hz nm −1 mW −2 and a 40 dB suppression of unwanted single-pump processes.
Frequency-degenerate photon pairs generated using nonlinear photonic integrated devices are a crucial resource for scalable quantum information processing and metrology. However, their realization is hindered by unwanted parametric processes occurring within the same phase matching band, which degrade the signal-to-noise ratio and reduce the purity of the associated quantum states. Here, we propose a dual-pump scheme to produce frequency-degenerate photon pairs, based on cascaded sum-frequency generation and spontaneous parametric down-conversion occurring within a single waveguide, while strongly suppressing parasitic photon pair generation from single-pump processes. This approach significantly simplifies the design compared to microresonator-based methods and enables both pumping and collection of photon pairs entirely in the telecom band. We experimentally validate the concept in a layer-poled thin film lithium niobate waveguide, achieving frequency-degenerate photon pair generation with a brightness of \SI{1.0(3)e5}{\hertz \per \nm \per \square \milli \watt } and a 40 dB suppression of unwanted single-pump processes.
Frequency-degenerate photon pairs are a key resource for quantum information processing. Yet, their generation via nonlinear parametric processes is often accompanied by parasitic interactions that hinder state purity. We present a novel approach based on dual-pump, cascaded sum-frequency generation (SFG) and spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) within a single layer-poled thin-film lithium niobate waveguide. By exploiting modal phase matching, our scheme effectively suppresses spurious photons originating from single-pump processes. This compact, single-pass architecture operates entirely in the telecom band and eliminates the need for complex filtering or microresonator structures. Experimentally, we demonstrate degenerate photon-pair generation with a brightness of (1.0 ± 0.3) × 105 Hz nm−1 mW−2 and more than 40 dB suppression of parasitic photon-pair emission. Our results establish a scalable, low-noise platform for high-purity quantum light sources and open a pathway toward on-chip squeezed light generation via cascaded processes.
Suppression of noise photons from unwanted nonlinear processes is a major hurdle in generating frequency-degenerate correlated photon pairs for quantum information, e.g. continuous-variable quantum computing [1]. On-chip, telecom-pumped and frequency-degenerate photon pairs have been produced either using second harmonic generation (SHG) followed by spontaneous parametric down conversion (SPDC) in thin film lithium niobate (TFLN) waveguides [2], or by dual-pump spontaneous four-wave mixing (DP-SFWM) in microresonators [3], [4]. However, the former needs careful filtering of the SHG pump, while the latter suffers from single-pump (SP-) SFWM contributions, which decrease the purity of the generated quantum states. SP-SFWM can be suppressed by linearly coupling resonators at the expense of reduced bandwidth [3] or efficiency [4].
Abstract Integrated photon-pair sources are crucial for scalable photonic quantum systems. Thin-film lithium niobate is a promising platform for on-chip photon-pair generation through spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC). However, the device implementation faces practical challenges. Periodically poled lithium niobate (PPLN), despite enabling flexible quasi-phase matching, suffers from poor fabrication reliability and device repeatability, while conventional modal phase matching (MPM) methods yield limited efficiencies due to inadequate mode overlaps. Here, we introduce a layer-poled lithium niobate (LPLN) nanophotonic waveguide for efficient photon-pair generation. It leverages layer-wise polarity inversion through electrical poling to break spatial symmetry and significantly enhance nonlinear interactions for MPM, achieving a notable normalized second-harmonic generation (SHG) conversion efficiency of 4615% W-1 cm-2. Through a cascaded SHG and SPDC process, we demonstrate photon-pair generation with a normalized brightness of 3.1×106 Hz nm-1 mW-2 in a 3.3 mm long LPLN waveguide, surpassing existing on-chip sources under similar operating configurations. Crucially, our LPLN waveguides offer enhanced fabrication reliability and reduced sensitivity to geometric variations and temperature fluctuations compared to PPLN devices. We expect LPLN to become a promising solution for on-chip nonlinear wavelength conversion and non-classical light generation, with immediate applications in quantum communication, networking, and on-chip photonic quantum information processing.
Abstract Broadband photon pairs are highly desirable for quantum metrology, quantum sensing, and quantum communication. Such sources are usually designed through type-0 phase-matching spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) that makes the photon pairs hard to separate in the frequency-degenerate case and thus limits their applications. In this paper, we design a broadband frequency-degenerate telecom-band photon pair source via the type-II SPDC in a dispersion-engineered thin-film lithium niobate waveguide, where the polarization modes of photon pairs are orthogonal and thus are easily separated deterministically. With a 5-mm-long waveguide, our design can achieve a bandwidth of 5.56 THz (44.8 nm), which is 8.6 times larger than that of the bulk lithium niobate, and the central wavelength can be flexibly adjusted. Our design is a promising approach towards high-quality integrated photon sources and may have wide applications in photonic quantum technologies.
We generate quantum-correlated photon pairs using cascaded χ ( 2 ) : χ ( 2 ) traveling-wave interactions for second-harmonic generation (SHG) and spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) in a single periodically-poled thin-film lithium-niobate (TFLN) waveguide. When pulse-pumped at 50 MHz, a 4-mm-long poled region with nearly 300%/Wcm2 SHG peak efficiency yields a generated photon-pair probability of 7±0.2 × 10−4 with corresponding coincidence-to-accidental ratio (CAR) of 13.6±0.7. The CAR is found to be limited by Stokes/anti-Stokes Raman-scattering noise generated primarily in the waveguide. A Raman peak of photon counts at 250 cm−1 Stokes shift from the fundamental-pump wavenumber suggests most of the noise that limits the CAR originates within the lithium niobate material of the waveguide.