Integrated photon sources for quantum information science applications
Author(s)
Alsing, P. M.
Mogent, N. A.
Thomas, P. M.
Fanto, M. L.
Tison, C. C.
Steidle, J. A.
Preble, S. F.
Rizzo, A.
Lu, Timothy K
Wang, Zihao
Date Issued
October 2017
Journal
Quantum Information Science and Technology III
Publisher
SPIE-Intl Soc Optical Eng
Citation
Fanto, M. L., C. C. Tison, J. A. Steidle, T. Lu, Z. Wang, N. A. Mogent, A. Rizzo, P. M. Thomas, S. F. Preble, P. M. Alsing and D. R. Englund. “Integrated Photon Sources for Quantum Information Science Applications.” Edited by Mark T. Gruneisen, Miloslav Dusek, and John G. Rarity. Quantum Information Science and Technology III (October 5, 2017).
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Ring resonators are used as photon pair sources by taking advantage of the materials second or third order non-linearities through the processes of spontaneous parametric downconversion and spontaneous four wave mixing respectively. Two materials of interest for these applications are silicon for the infrared and aluminum nitride for the ultraviolet through the infrared. When fabricated into ring type sources they are capable of producing pairs of indistinguishable photons but typically suffer from an effective 50% loss. By slightly decoupling the input waveguide from the ring, the drop port coincidence ratio can be significantly increased with the trade-off being that the pump is less efficiently coupled into the ring. Ring resonators with this design have been demonstrated having coincidence ratios of 96% but requiring a factor of ∼10 increase in the pump power. Through the modification of the coupling design that relies on additional spectral dependence, it is possible to achieve similar coincidence ratios without the increased pumping requirement. This can be achieved by coupling the input waveguide to the ring multiple times, thus creating a Mach-Zehnder interferometer. This coupler design can be used on both sides of the ring resonator so that resonances supported by one of the couplers are suppressed by the other. This is the ideal configuration for a photon-pair source as it can only support the pump photons at the input side while only allowing the generated photons to leave through the output side. Recently, this device has been realized with preliminary results exhibiting the desired spectral dependence and with a coincidence ratio as high as ∼ 97% while allowing the pump to be nearly critically coupled to the ring. The demonstrated near unity coincidence ratio infers a near maximal heralding efficiency from the fabricated device. This device has the potential to greatly improve the scalability and performance of quantum computing and communication systems.
Subjects
Integrated Photonics, Entangled Photon Sources, Quantum
MIT Department
Institute for Medical Engineering and Science
Harvard University--MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Biological Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering
Terms of Use
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2282154
