In this paper we present a compact source of narrow-band energy-time entangled photon pairs in the telecom regime based on a Ti-indiffused Periodically Poled Lithium Niobate (PPLN) waveguide resonator, i.e. a waveguide with end-face dielectric multi-layer mirrors. This is a monolithic doubly resonant Optical Parametric Oscillator (OPO) far below threshold, which generates photon pairs by Spontaneous Parametric Down Conversion (SPDC) at around 1560nm with a 117MHz (0.91 pm)- bandwidth. A coherence time of 2.7 ns is estimated by a time correlation measurement and a high quality of the entangled states is confirmed by a Bell-type experiment. Since highly coherent energy-time entangled photon pairs in the telecom regime are suitable for long distance transmission and manipulation, this source is well suited to the requirements of quantum communication.
We describe theoretically the quantum properties of atype-II Optical Parametric Oscillator containing a birefringent plate which induces a linear coupling between the orthogonally polarized signal and idler beams and results in phase locking between these two beams. As in a classical OPO, the signal and idler waves show large quantum correlations which can be measured experimentally due to the phase locking between the two beams. We study the influence of the waveplate on the various criteria characterizing quantum correlations. We show in particular that the quantum correlations can be maximi…
We report generation and measurement of a squeezed vacuum from a semi-monolithic Fabry-Perot optical parametric oscillator (OPO) up to 100 MHz at 1550 nm. The output coupler of the OPO is a flat surface of a nonlinear crystal with partially reflecting coating, which enables direct coupling with waveguide modules. Using the OPO, we observed 6.2dB of squeezing at 2 MHz and 3.0 dB of squeezing at 100 MHz. The OPO operates at the optimal wavelength to minimize propagation losses in silica waveguides and looks towards solving a bottleneck of downsizing these experiments: that of coupling between a …
We present the full experimental reconstruction of Gaussian entangled states generated by a type--II optical parametric oscillator (OPO) below threshold. Our scheme provides the entire covariance matrix using a single homodyne detector and allows for the complete characterization of bipartite Gaussian states, including the evaluation of purity, entanglement and nonclassical photon correlations, without a priori assumptions on the state under investigation. Our results show that single homodyne schemes are convenient and robust setups for the full characterization of OPO signals and represent a…
In analogy with the spin-squeezing inequality of Wang and Sanders [Physical Review A 68, 012101 (2003)], we find inequalities describing macroscopic polarization correlations that are obeyed by all classical fields, and whose violation implies entanglement of the photons that make up the optical beam. We consider a realistic and exactly-solvable experimental scenario employing polarization- squeezed light from an optical parametric oscillator (OPO) and find that any two photons separated by less than the OPO coherence time are polarization entangled. The polarization entanglement is robust aga…
We experimentally show that two-photon path-entangled states can be coherently manipulated by multi-mode interference in multi-mode waveguides. By measuring the output two-photon spatial correlation function versus the phase of the input state, we show that multi-mode waveguides perform as nearly-ideal multi-port beam splitters at the quantum level, creating a large variety of entangled and separable multi-path two-photon states.
We report measurements of time-frequency entangled photon pairs and heralded single photons at telecommunications wavelengths, generated using a periodically-poled, lithium niobate on insulator (LNOI) waveguide pumped optically by a diode laser. We achieve a high Coincidences-to-Accidentals Ratio (CAR) at high pair brightness, a low value of the conditional self-correlation function [$g^{(2)}$(0)], and high two-photon energy-time Franson interferometric visibility, which demonstrate the high quality of the entangled photon pairs and heralded single photons.
Entangled photons are pivotal elements in emerging quantum information technologies. While several schemes are available for the production of entangled photons, they typically require the assistance of cumbersome optical elements to couple them to other components involved in logic operations. Here, we introduce a scheme by which entangled photon pairs are directly generated as guided mode states in optical waveguides. The scheme relies on the intrinsic nonlinearity of the waveguide material, circumventing the use of bulky optical components. Specifically, we consider an optical fiber under n…
We investigate the process of entangled state of light generation while propagation along a one dimensional array of single-mode nonlinear waveguides. We consider a situation when entanglement is formed due to spontaneous parametric down-conversion of the pump which is present only in a signal waveguide. In the considered process the generated state of light is multi-mode squeezed. We demonstrate that starting from certain distance of light propagation only pairs of waveguides, located symmetrically with respect to the pumped one, occur to be entangled. Also there is an optimal pump amplitude …
Quantum networks provide a prominent platform for realizing quantum information processing and quantum communication, with entanglement being a key resource in such applications. Here, we describe the dissipative transport protocol for entangled states, where entanglement stored in the first node of quantum network can be transported with high fidelity to the second node via a 1D chiral waveguide. In particular, we exploit the directional asymmetry in chirally-coupled single-mode ring resonators to transport entangled states. For the fully chiral waveguide, Bell states, multipartite $W$-states…
Integrated optical devices are expected to play a promising role in the field of quantum information science and technology. In this paper, we propose a scheme for the generation of nondegenerate, copolarised, modal, and path- entangled photons using a directional coupler and an asymmetric Y-coupler geometry in type 0 phase-matched domain engineered lithium niobate(LN) waveguide. The nonlinearity in LN is tailored in such a way that quasi phase matching conditions for two different spontaneous parametric down conversion processes are obeyed simultaneously, leading to a modal and path-entangled…
Time-frequency entangled photons constitute an important resource for a plethora of applications across the diverse quantum technology landscape. Thus, efficient and tunable setups for the generation of entangled photons are requisite for modern quantum technologies. In this work, we propose a generic cavity QED setup designed for on-demand generation of time-frequency entangled photon pairs, with each photon propagating in a separate waveguide. We outline a potential incarnation of this setup in the microwave superconducting circuit QED architecture. We derive and numerically solve the set of…
We report the realization of a fiber coupled polarization entangled photon-pair source at 1310 nm based on a birefringent titanium in-diffused waveguide integrated on periodically poled lithium niobate. By taking advantage of a dedicated and high-performance setup, we characterized the quantum properties of the pairs by measuring two-photon interference in both Hong-Ou-Mandel and standard Bell inequality configurations. We obtained, for the two sets of measurements, interference net visibilities reaching nearly 100%, which represent important and competitive results compared to similar wavegui…
In this paper we show how to generate efficiently entanglement between two artificial giant atoms with photon-mediated interactions in a waveguide. Taking advantage of the adjustable decay processes of giant atoms into the waveguide, and of the interference processes, spontaneous sudden birth of entanglement can be strongly enhanced with giant atoms. Highly entangled states can also be generated in the steady-state regime when the system is driven by a resonant classical field. We show that the statistics of the light emitted by the system can be used as a witness of the presence of entangleme…
Realizing a fully connected network of quantum processors requires the ability to distribute quantum entanglement. For distant processing nodes, this can be achieved by generating, routing, and capturing spatially entangled itinerant photons. In this work, we demonstrate the deterministic generation of such photons using superconducting transmon qubits that are directly coupled to a waveguide. In particular, we generate two-photon N00N states and show that the state and spatial entanglement of the emitted photons are tunable via the qubit frequencies. Using quadrature amplitude detection, we r…
The conditions required for spontaneous parametric down-conversion in a waveguide with periodic nonlinearity in the presence of an unguided pump field are established. Control of the periodic nonlinearity and the physical properties of the waveguide permits the quasi-phase matching equations that describe counter-propagating guided signal and idler beams to be satisfied. We compare the tuning curves and spectral properties of such counter-propagating beams to those for co-propagating beams under typical experimental conditions. We find that the counter-propagating beams exhibit narrow bandwidt…
We propose to integrate the electro-optic tuning function into polarization-entangled photon pair generation process in a periodically poled lithium niobate (PPLN). Due to the versatility of PPLN, both the spontaneously parametric down conversion and electro-optic polarization rotation effects could be realized simultaneously. Orthogonally-polarized and parallel-polarized photon pairs thus are instantly switchable by tuning the applied field. The characteristics of the source are investigated showing adjustable bandwidths and high entanglement degrees. Moreover, other kinds of reconfigurable e…
We show theoretically that multipartite entanglement is generated on a massive scale in the spectrum, or optical frequency comb, of a single optical parametric oscillator (OPO) emitting well above threshold. In this system, the quantum dynamics of the strongly depleted pump field are responsible for the onset of the entanglement by correlating the two-mode squeezed, bipartite-entangled pairs of OPO signal fields. (Such pairs are independent of one another in the undepleted, classical pump approximation.) We verify the multipartite nature of the entanglement by evaluating the van Loock-Furusawa…
Semiconductor Bragg-reflection waveguides are well-established sources of correlated photon pairs as well as promising candidates for building up integrated quantum optics devices. Here, we use such a source with optimized non-linearity for preparing time-bin entangled photons in the telecommunication wavelength range. By taking advantage of pulsed state preparation and efficient free-running single-photon detection, we drive our source at low pump powers, which results in a strong photon-pair correlation. The tomographic reconstruction of the state's density matrix reveals that our source exh…
We numerically demonstrate that "mode-entangled states" based on the transverse modes of classical optical fields in multimode waveguides violate Bell's inequality. Numerically simulating the correlation measurement scheme of Bell's inequality, we obtain the normalized correlation functions of the intensity fluctuations for the two entangled classical fields. By using the correlation functions, the maximum violations of Bell's inequality are obtained. This implies that the two classical fields in the mode-entangled states, although spatially separated, present a nonlocal correlation.
We present a scheme to generate a continuous variable (CV) multipartite entangled state using an array of plasmonic graphene waveguides that are activated by nonclassical driving microwave modes. Within this scheme, we can exploit the interaction of two light fields coupled to the same microwave mode in each waveguide to produce any type of multipartite Gaussian entangled state. A teleportation network is illustrated using the resultant CV multipartite entangled state. In particular, the proposed setup enables coherent state teleportation across remotely connected nodes with fidelity above a t…
We propose an on-chip source of entangled photon pairs that uses an arrayed-waveguide grating (AWG) with multiple nonlinear input waveguides as correlated photon pair sources. The AWG wavelength-demultiplexes photon pairs created in input waveguides and simultaneously produces a high-dimensional entangled state encoded in the optical path. We implemented the device with a monolithic silicon-silica waveguide integration platform and demonstrated the entanglement of two dimensions in a proof-of-principle experiment.
In this paper, we address the issue of the generation of non-degenerate cross-polarization-entangled photon pairs using type-II periodically poled lithium niobate. We show that, by an appropriate engineering of the quasi-phase-matching grating, it is possible to simultaneously satisfy the conditions for two spontaneous parametric down-conversion processes, namely ordinary pump photon down-conversion to either extraordinary signal and ordinary idler paired photons, or to ordinary signal and extraordinary idler paired photons. In contrast to single type-II phase-matching, these two processes, wh…
The emerging strategy to overcome the limitations of bulk quantum optics consists of taking advantage of the robustness and compactness achievable by the integrated waveguide technology. Here we report the realization of a directional coupler, fabricated by femtosecond laser waveguide writing, acting as an integrated beam splitter able to support polarization encoded qubits. This maskless and single step technique allows to realize circular transverse waveguide profiles able to support the propagation of Gaussian modes with any polarization state. Using this device, we demonstrate the quantum …
We put forward a new highly efficient source of paired photons entangled in polarization with an ultra-large bandwidth. The photons are generated by means of a conveniently designed spontaneous parametric down-conversion process in a semiconductor type-II Bragg reflection waveguide. The proposed scheme aims at being a key element of an integrated source of polarization-entangled photon pairs highly suitable for its use in a multi-user quantum-key-distribution system.
In this paper, we analyze spontaneous parametric down conversion in a 2D slant strip type periodically poled planar waveguide and show that such a configuration has efficiencies higher than in the case of bulk crystals with the possibility of ease of collection like in channel waveguides with the additional feature of wavelength tunability. The proposed design should find applications in quantum processing using integrated quantum optics.
We study the generation of biphoton modally entangled states in such waveguide structures that lead to spectrum broadening. The process of spontaneous parametric down conversion (SPDC) has been considered for the biphoton generation. The main subject of our study is the dependence of the biphoton spectra on the structure spatial characteristics. The representation of the core structures as definite assembles of nonlinear layers allows us to find analytical description for biphoton spectrum. We show that chirped biphotons with discrete as well as continuous spectra can be generated depending on…
We discuss mode-entangled states based on the optical transverse modes of the optical field propagating in multi-mode waveguides, which are classical analogs of the quantum entangled states. The analogs are discussed in detail, including the violation of the Bell inequality and the correlation properties of optical pulses' group delays. The research on these analogs may be important, for it not only provides useful insights into fundamental features of quantum entanglement, but also yields new insights into quantum computation and quantum communication.
We study the quantum properties of light propagating through an array of coupled nonlinear waveguides and forming a discrete soliton. We demonstrate that it is possible to use certain types of quasi-solitons to form continuous variables entanglement between the certain pair of waveguides. This entanglement generation process occurs even with a very large number of photons in the laser field used, so it does not require a special material with an extremely high nonlinearity coefficient. Also absorption in the waveguide media does not influence it too much.
We demonstrate experimentally the frequency time entanglement of photon pairs produced in a CW pumped quasi phased matched AlGaAs superlattice waveguide. A visibility of 96.0+-0.7% without background subtraction has been achieved, which corresponds the violation of Bell inequality by 52 standard deviations.
We demonstrate experimentally that spontaneous parametric down-conversion in an AlGaAs semiconductor Bragg reflection waveguide can make for paired photons highly entangled in the polarization degree of freedom at the telecommunication wavelength of 1550 nm. The pairs of photons show visibility higher than 90% in several polarization bases and violate a Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt Bell-like inequality by more than 3 standard deviations. This represents a significant step toward the realization of efficient and versatile self pumped sources of entangled photon pairs on-chip.
The distance dependence of the probability of observing two photons in a waveguide is investigated. The Glauber correlation functions of the entangled photons in waveguides are considered and the spatial and temporal dependence of the correlation functions is evaluated. We derive upper bounds to the distance dependence of the probability of observing two photons. These inequalities should be possible to observe in experiments.
A scheme to utilize atom-like emitters coupled to nanophotonic waveguides is proposed for the generation of many-body entangled states and for the reversible mapping of these states of matter to photonic states of an optical pulse in the waveguide. Our protocol makes use of decoherence-free subspaces (DFS) for the atomic emitters with coherent evolution within the DFS enforced by strong dissipative coupling to the waveguide. By switching from subradiant to superradiant states, entangled atomic states are mapped to photonic states with high fidelity. An implementation using ultracold atoms coup…
We propose a scheme to generate photonic tensor network states by sequential scattering of photons in waveguide QED systems. We show that sequential scatterings can convert a series of unentangled photons into any type of matrix product states. We also demonstrate the possibility of generating projected entangled pair states with arbitrary network representation by photon re-scattering.
We analyze theoretically spontaneous parametric down-conversion in a multimode nonlinear waveguide as a source of entangled pairs of spatial qubits, realized as superpositions of a photon in two orthogonal transverse modes of the waveguide. It is shown that by exploiting intermodal dispersion, down-conversion into the relevant pairs of spatial modes can be selected by spectral filtering, which also provides means to fine-tune the properties of the generated entangled state. We also discuss an inverting interferometer detecting the spatial parity of the input beam as a versatile tool to charact…
The reversible transfer of quantum states of light in and out of matter constitutes an important building block for future applications of quantum communication: it allows synchronizing quantum information, and enables one to build quantum repeaters and quantum networks. Much effort has been devoted worldwide over the past years to develop memories suitable for the storage of quantum states. Of central importance to this task is the preservation of entanglement, a quantum mechanical phenomenon whose counter intuitive properties have occupied philosophers, physicists and computer scientists sin…
We present an integrated source of counterpropagating entangled states based on a coupled resonator optical waveguide that is pumped by a classical pulsed source incident from above the waveguide. We investigate theoretically the generation and propagation of continuous variable entangled states in this coupled-cavity system in the presence of intrinsic loss. Using a tight-binding approximation, we derive analytic time-dependent expressions for the number of photons in each cavity, as well as for the correlation variance between the photons in different pairs of cavities, to evaluate the degre…
Integrated quantum optics becomes a consequent tendency towards practical quantum information processing. Here, we report the on-chip generation and manipulation of photonic entanglement based on reconfigurable lithium niobate waveguide circuits. By introducing periodically poled structure into the waveguide interferometer, two individual photon-pair sources with controllable phase-shift are produced and cascaded by a quantum interference, resulting in a deterministically separated identical photon pair. The state is characterized by 92.9% visibility Hong-Ou-Mandel interference. Continuous mor…
We report the first entanglement generation experiment that utilizes a silicon waveguide. Using spontaneous four-wave mixing in a 1.09-cm-long silicon wire waveguide, we generated 1.5-um, high-purity time-bin entangled photons without temperature control, and observed a two-photon interference fringe with >73% visibility.
We report on energy-time and time-bin entangled photon-pair sources based on a periodically poled lithium niobate (PPLN) waveguide. Degenerate twin photons at 1314 nm wavelength are created by spontaneous parametric down-conversion and coupled into standard telecom fibers. Our PPLN waveguide features a very high conversion efficiency of about 10^(-6), roughly 4 orders of magnitude more than that obtained employing bulk crystals. Even if using low power laser diodes, this engenders a significant probability for creating two pairs at a time - an important advantage for some quantum communication…
We consider the design of photonic circuits that make use of Ti:LiNbO$_{3}$ diffused channel waveguides for generating photons with various combinations of modal, spectral, and polarization entanglement. Down-converted photon pairs are generated via spontaneous optical parametric down-conversion (SPDC) in a two-mode waveguide. We study a class of photonic circuits comprising: 1) a nonlinear periodically poled two-mode waveguide structure, 2) a set of single-mode and two-mode waveguide-based couplers arranged in such a way that they suitably separate the three photons comprising the SPDC proces…
Entangled-photon pairs are an essential resource for quantum information technologies. Chip-scale sources of entangled pairs have been integrated with various photonic platforms, including silicon, nitrides, indium phosphide, and lithium niobate, but each has fundamental limitations that restrict the photon-pair brightness and quality, including weak optical nonlinearity or high waveguide loss. Here, we demonstrate a novel, ultra-low-loss AlGaAs-on-insulator platform capable of generating time-energy entangled photons in a $Q$ $>1$ million microring resonator with nearly 1,000-fold improvement…
We present a scheme for an integrated four-wave mixing source of narrow-band path-entangled photon pairs with efficient spatial pump self-rejection. The scheme is based on correlated loss in a system of waveguides in Kerr nonlinear media. We demonstrate that this setup allows for upwards of 100dB pump rejection, without additional filtering. The effect is reached by driving the symmetric collective mode that is strongly attenuated by an engineered dissipation, while photon pairs are born in the antisymmetric mode. A similar set-up can additionally be realized for generation of two-photon NOON …
We propose and design a high-brightness, ultra-compact electrically pumped GaSb-based laser source of entangled photons generated by mode-matched intracavity parametric down-conversion of lasing modes. To describe the nonlinear mixing in highly dispersive and dissipative waveguides, we develop a nonperturbative quantum theory of parametric down-conversion of waveguide modes which takes into account the effects of modal dispersion, group and phase mismatch, propagation, dissipation, and coupling to noisy reservoirs. We extend our theory to the regime of quantized pump fields with a new approach…
We present a study of the propagation of higher-order spatial modes in a waveguided parametric down-conversion photon pair source. Observing the multimode photon pair spectrum from a periodically poled KTiOPO$_4$ waveguide allowed us to isolate individual spatial modes through their distinctive spectral properties. We have measured directly the spatial distribution of each mode of the photon pairs, confirming the findings of our waveguide model, and demonstrated by coincidence measurements that the total parity of the modes is conserved in the nonlinear interaction. Furthermore, we show that w…
Integrated optics provides the platform for the experimental implementation of highly complex and compact circuits for quantum information applications. In this context integrated waveguide sources represent a powerful resource for the generation of quantum states of light due to their high brightness and stability. However, the confinement of the light in a single spatial mode limits the realization of multi-channel sources. Due to this challenge one of the most adopted sources in quantum information processes, i.e. a source which generates spectrally indistinguishable polarization entangled …
We study the single-photon transport in a single-mode waveguide, in which two-level atoms in spatial superpositions are embedded. We find that the transmission of the photon can be used as a non-destructive probe for coherence of the superposition. The protocol proposed is shown to be independent of the distance between the wells in which the atoms are trapped. Furthermore, we show that by looking at the transmission in a suitable regime, a maximally entangled state can be post-selected from an unknown superposition.
We investigate the generation of photon-phonon entangled states by exploiting stimulated Brillouin scattering in nanoscale waveguides. The squeezing type Hamiltonian that represents creation and annihilation of photon-phonon pairs is obtained out of the multimode photon-phonon interaction Hamiltonian in the presence of a pump field. The Bogoliubov eigenstates of the Hamiltonian, which are a coherent mix of propagating photons and phonons, show squeezing properties in the uncertainties of the collective quadrature operators. The measurement of the photonic component can provide a controllable s…
We consider the interaction of one- and two-photon pulses in a waveguide with two two-level systems (TLS) that are also able to interact directly either through an exchange- or a dipole-type interaction. We focus on the system's transport properties and show how the presence of a second TLS increases the control options, especially when direct interactions are also allowed. We also obtain, within a Markov (long pulse) approximation, exact results for the nonlinear or entangled terms that arise in the two-photon case, and discuss both their potential applications and ways to minimize their effe…
We demonstrate fast polarisation and path control of photons at 1550 nm in lithium niobate waveguide devices using the electro-optic effect. We show heralded single photon state engineering, quantum interference, fast state preparation of two entangled photons and feedback control of quantum interference. These results point the way to a single platform that will enable the integration of nonlinear single photon sources and fast reconfigurable circuits for future photonic quantum information science and technology.
We report the experimental generation of polarization-entangled photons at telecommunication wavelengths using spontaneous four-wave mixing in silicon-on-insulator wire waveguides. The key component is a 2D coupler that transforms path entanglement into polarization entanglement at the output of the device. Using quantum state tomography we find that the produced state has fidelity 88% with a pure non-maximally entangled state. The produced state violates the CHSH Bell inequality by S=2.37\pm0.19.
