We introduce an interaction-picture formalism to quantitatively model biphoton generation in microrings, deriving for the first time coupling conditions that maximize one-and two-photon generation rates for standard geometries and pumping configurations.
We present a self-contained analytical model for biphoton generation in microring resonators. Encompassing both all-pass and add-drop geometries, identical and distinct pump and biphoton coupling coefficients, and continuous-wave and pulsed pumping, our interaction-picture-based approach reveals time-frequency biphoton correlations while also predicting absolute generation rates. Under continuous-wave excitation, we find critical coupling of both the pump and biphoton to maximize the rate of single photons extracted from the microring, whereas critical coupling of the pump but overcoupling of the biphoton maximize the two-photon rate. Under pulsed pumping, overcoupling of both pump and biphoton (to different degrees) maximizes photon extraction probabilities, albeit under a tradeoff with spectral factorability that we quantify via parameter scans over a range of coupler pairings. As a whole, our formalism should prove valuable for the practical design of integrated photon sources, merging a flexible and intuitive biphoton-centric depiction with quantitative predictions closely tied to experimental parameters.
We investigate entangled photon-pair generation in a lossy microring resonator using an input-output formalism based on the work of M. G. Raymer and C. J. McKinstrie [Phys. Rev. A 88, 043819 (2013)] and P. M. Alsing et al. [Phys. Rev. A 95, 053828 (2017)] that incorporates circulation factors that account for the multiple round-trips of the fields within the cavity. We consider the nonlinear processes of spontaneous parametric down-conversion and spontaneous four-wave mixing, and we compute the generated biphoton signal-idler state from a single-bus microring resonator, along with the generation, coincidence-to-accidental, and heralding efficiency rates. We compare these generalized results to those obtained by previous works employing the standard Langevin input-output formalism.
We develop a general Hamiltonian treatment of spontaneous four-wave mixing in a microring resonator side-coupled to a channel waveguide. The effect of scattering losses in the ring is included, as well as parasitic nonlinear effects including self- and cross-phase modulation. A procedure for computing the output of such a system for arbitrary parameters and pump states is presented. For the limit of weak pumping an expression for the joint spectral intensity of generated photon pairs, as well as the singles-to-coincidences ratio, is derived.
To achieve photon-pair generation scaling, we optimize the quality factor of microring resonators for efficient continuous-wave-pumped spontaneous four-wave mixing. Numerical studies indicate that a high intrinsic quality factor makes high pair rate and pair brightness possible, in which the maximums take place under overcoupling and critical-coupling conditions, respectively. We fabricate six all-pass-type microring resonator samples on a silicon-on-insulator chip involving gap width as the only degree of freedom. The signal count rate, pair brightness, and coincidence rate of all the samples are characterized, which are then compared with the modified simulations by taking the detector saturation and nonlinear loss into account. Being experimentally validated for the first time to the best of our knowledge, this work explicitly demonstrates that reducing the round-trip loss in a ring cavity and designing the corresponding optimized gap width are more effective to generate high-rate or high-brightness photon pairs than the conventional strategy of simply increasing the quality factor. (C) 2018 Chinese Laser Press