Non-classical states of light, such as entangled photon pairs and number states, are essential for fundamental tests of quantum mechanics and optical quantum technologies. The most widespread technique for creating these quantum resources is the spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) of laser light into photon pairs. Conservation of energy and momentum in this process, known as phase-matching, gives rise to strong correlations which are used to produce two-photon entanglement in various degrees of freedom. It has been a longstanding goal of the quantum optics community to realise a source that can produce analogous correlations in photon triplets, but of the many approaches considered, none have been technically feasible. In this paper we report the observation of photon triplets generated by cascaded down-conversion. Here each triplet originates from a single pump photon, and therefore quantum correlations will extend over all three photons in a way not achievable with independently created photon pairs. We expect our photon-triplet source to open up new avenues of quantum optics and become an important tool in quantum technologies. Our source will allow experimental interrogation of novel quantum correlations, the post-selection free generation of tripartite entanglement without post- selection and the generation of heralded entangled-photon pairs suitable for linear optical quantum computing. Two of the triplet photons have a wavelength matched for optimal transmission in optical fibres, ideally suited for three-party quantum communication. Furthermore, our results open interesting regimes of non-linear optics, as we observe spontaneous down-conversion pumped by single photons, an interaction also highly relevant to optical quantum computing.
Generating multi-photon entangled states is a primary task for applications of quantum information processing. We investigate production of photon-triplet in a regime of light amplification in second-order nonlinear media under action of a pulsed laser beam. For this goal the process of cascaded three-photon splitting in an optical cavity driven by a sequence of laser pulses with Gaussian time-dependent envelopes is investigated. Considering production of photon-triplet for short-time regime and in the cascaded three-wave collinear configuration Generating multi-photon entangled states is a pr…
We analyze the generation rates and preparation fidelities of photon triplet states in pulsed cascaded parametric down-conversion (PDC) under realistic experimental circumstances. As a model system, we assume a monolithically integrated device with negligible interface loss between the two consecutive PDC stages. We model the secondary down-conversion process in terms of a lossy channel and provide a detailed analysis of noise contributions. Taking variable pump powers into account, we estimate the impact of higher-order photon contributions and conversion processes on the achievable coinciden…
The generation of pulsed polarization entangled photon pair has been realized using type-I phase matching in the spontaneous parametirc downconversion process in a space cascaded two-crystal geometry. The optical axes of the crystal are aligned in such a way that the horizontal polarization photon pair is produced from up crystal, and the vertical polarization photon pair is produced from down crystal. These two processes are simultaneous, but are separable in space. We get the high entangled polarization photon pair by using the single mode fiber to erase the spatial information between these…
Heralded single photon sources are often implemented using spontaneous parametric downconversion, but their quality can be restricted by optical loss, double pair emission and detector dark counts. Here, we show that the performance of such sources can be improved using cascaded downconversion, by providing a second trigger signal to herald the presence of a single photon, thereby reducing the effects of detector dark counts. We find that for a setup with fixed detectors, an improved heralded second-order correlation function $g^{(2)}$ can always be achieved with cascaded downconversion given …
A new ultra bright pulsed source of polarization entangled photons has been realized using type-II phase matching in spontaneous parametric down conversion process in two cascaded crystals. The optical axes of the crystals are aligned in such a way that the extraordinarily (ordinarily) polarized cone from one crystal overlaps with the ordinarily (extraordinarily) polarized cone from the second crystal. This spatial overlapping removes the association between the polarization and the output angle of the photons that exist in a single type-II down conversion process. Hence, entanglement of photo…
We investigate theoretically the model of a cavity-quantum-electrodynamics (QED) system that consists of two two-level atoms coupled to a single-mode cavity in the weak coupling regime, where the system is driven by quantum light. The dynamics behavior of the entire system is tackled in the framework of a cascaded quantum system. We find that the two-photon blockade with two-photon bunching and three-photon antibunching can be obtained even when the strong system dissipation is included. This result shows that our work has potential for realizing entangled photon pairs in a weakly coupled cavi…
Photon loss is one of the main obstacles in current long-distance quantum communications. The approach of noiseless linear amplification (NLA) is one of the powerful way to distill the single-photon state (SPS) from a mixed state, which comprises both the SPS and vacuum state. However, existing NLA protocol can only perform the amplification for one time. That is the fidelity of the SPS cannot be increased anymore. In this paper, We put forward an efficient cascaded NLA protocol for both the SPS and single-photon entanglement (SPE), respectively, with the help of some auxiliary single photons.…
We study the entanglement distillation in continuous variable systems when a photon replacement protocol is employed. A cascaded protocol is studied and we find that the resultant entanglement increases by increasing the number of repetitions. Interestingly, the entanglement enhancement is not sensitive to the asymmetry of the protocol and gives the same result for any arrangement in the absence of loss. The non-Gaussianity of the outcome state is also studied and it is found that the non-Gaussianity of the state dramatically depends on the experimental arrangements. By providing practical inf…
Stable sources of entangled photons are important requirements for quantum communications. In recent years, cascaded downconversion has been demonstrated as an effective method of directly producing three-photon entanglement. However, to produce polarization entanglement these sources have until now relied on intricate active phase stabilization schemes, thus limiting their robustness and usability. In this work, we present a completely phase-stable source of three-photon entanglement in the polarization degree of freedom. With this source, which is based on a cascade of two pair sources based…
We studied the quantum correlation between the photon pairs generated by biexciton cascade decays of self-assembled quantum dots, and determined the temperature behavior associated with so-called sudden change of the quantum correlation. The relationship between the fine structure splitting and the sudden change temperature is also provided. Our study indicates that this correlation behavior sudden change temperature is independent on the back ground noise in the system and far lower than entanglement sudden death temperature, therefore it should be easier to observe the phenomenon of correlat…
Mollow physics in the two-photon regime shows interesting features such as path-controlled time-reordering of photon pairs without the need to delay them. Here, we calculate analytically the two-photon correlations $ g^{(2)}(τ)$, essential to discuss and study such phenomena in the resonant-driven dressed-state regime. It is shown that there exists upper and lower bounds of the $ g^{(2)}(τ)-$ function for certain spectrally-selected photon pairs. Recent reported experiments agree with the presented theory and thereby it is shown that the resonant-driven four-level system is an interesting sour…
The cascade-emitted biphotons generated from the alkali metal atomic ensembles are an excellent entanglement resource which enables long-distance quantum communication. The communication of quantum information between distant locations can be realized by utilizing the low-loss telecom bandwidth in the upper transition of the cascaded photons in a fiber-based quantum network. Meanwhile, the infrared photon from the lower transition of this highly directional and frequency-correlated biphoton can be created under the four-wave mixing process and can be stored locally as a collective spin wave. H…
Cascaded optical cavities appear in various quantum information processing schemes in which atomic qubits are sitting in separate cavities interconnected by photons as flying qubits. The usual theoretical description relies on a coupled-mode Hamiltonian approach. Here we investigate the system of cascaded cavities without modal decomposition by using a scattering model approach and determine the validity regime of the coupled-mode models.
In this paper, we demonstrate the generation of high-performance entangled photon-pairs in different degrees of freedom from a single piece of fiber pigtailed periodically poled LiNbO$_3$ (PPLN) waveguide. We utilize cascaded second-order nonlinear optical processes, i.e. second-harmonic generation (SHG) and spontaneous parametric down conversion (SPDC), to generate photon-pairs. Previously, the performance of the photon pairs is contaminated by Raman noise photons from the fiber pigtails. Here by integrating the PPLN waveguide with noise rejecting filters, we obtain a coincidence-to-accidenta…
We investigate the degree of indistinguishability of cascaded photons emitted from a 3-level quantum ladder system; in our case the biexciton-exciton cascade of semiconductor quantum dots. For the 3-level quantum ladder system we theoretically demonstrate that the indistinguishability is inherently limited for both emitted photons and determined by the ratio of the lifetimes of the excited and intermediate states. We experimentally confirm this finding by comparing the quantum interference visibility of non-cascaded emission and cascaded emission from the same semiconductor quantum dot. Quantu…
Resources for the manipulation and measurements of high-dimensional photonic signals are crucial for implementing qu$d$it-based applications. Here we propose potentially high-performance, chip-compatible devices for such purposes by exploiting quantum-frequency conversion in nonlinear optical media. Specifically, by using sum-frequency generation in a $χ^{(2)}$ waveguide we show how mode-resolved photon counting can be accomplished for telecom-band photonic signals subtending multiple temporal modes. Our method is generally applicable to any nonlinear medium with arbitrary dispersion property.
Deterministic sources of high-fidelity entangled qubit pairs encoded in the dual-rail photonic basis, i.e., presence of a single photon in one of two orthogonal modes, are a key enabling technology of many applications of quantum information processing, including high-rate high-fidelity quantum communications over long distances. The most popular and mature sources of such photonic entanglement, e.g., those that leverage spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) or spontaneous four-wave mixing (sFWM), generate an entangled (so-called, continuous-variable) quantum state that contains contri…
The preparation of light pulses with well-defined quantum properties requires precise control at the individual photon level. Here, we demonstrate exact and controlled multi-photon subtraction from incoming light pulses. We employ a cascaded system of tightly confined cold atom ensembles with strong, collectively enhanced coupling of photons to Rydberg states. The excitation blockade resulting from interactions between Rydberg atoms limits photon absorption to one per ensemble and engineered dephasing of the collective excitation suppresses stimulated re-emission of the photon. We experimental…
Efficient sources of many-partite non-classical states are key for the advancement of quantum technologies and for the fundamental testing of quantum mechanics. We demonstrate the generation of time-correlated photon triplets at telecom wavelengths via pulsed cascaded parametric down-conversion in a monolithically integrated source. By detecting the generated states with success probabilities of $(6.25\pm1.09)\times10^{-11}$ per pump pulse at injected powers as low as $10\;μ\mathrm{W}$, we benchmark the efficiency of the complete system and deduce its high potential for scalability. Our source…
We present an experimental proposal for the generation of photon triplets based on third-order spontaneous para- metric downconversion in thin optical fibers. Our analysis includes expressions for the quantum state, which de- scribes the photon triplets and for the generation rate in terms of all experimental parameters. We also present, for a specific source design, numerically calculated generation rates.
Radiative cascades emit correlated photon pairs, providing a pathway for the generation of entangled photons. The realization of a radiative cascade with impurity atoms in semiconductors, a leading platform for the generation of quantum light, would therefore provide a new avenue for the development of entangled photon pair sources. Here we demonstrate a radiative cascade from the decay of a biexciton at an impurity-atom complex in a ZnSe quantum well. The emitted photons show clear temporal correlations revealing the time--ordering of the cascade. Our result establishes impurity atoms in ZnSe…
Recently, Grange et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 114, 193601 (2015)] showed the possibility of single photon generation with high indistinguishability from a quantum emitter, despite strong pure dephasing, by `funneling' emission into a photonic cavity. Here, we show that cascaded two-cavity system can further improve the photon characteristics and greatly reduce the Q-factor requirement to levels achievable with present-day technology. Our approach leverages recent advances in nanocavities with ultrasmall mode volume and does not require ultrafast excitation of the emitter. These results were obtain…
We study the third order spontaneous parametric down conversion (TOSPDC) process, as a means to generate entangled photon triplets. Specifically, we consider thin optical fibers as the nonlinear medium to be used as the basis for TOSPDC in configurations where phase matching is attained through the use of more than one fiber transverse modes. Our analysis in this paper, which follows from our earlier paper Optics Letters 36, 190 (2011), aims to supply experimentalists with the details required in order to design a TOSPDC photon-triplet source. Specifically, our analysis focuses on the photon t…
Quantum cascaded systems offer the possibility to manipulate a target system with the quantum state of a source system. Here, we study in detail the differences between a direct quantum cascade and coherent/incoherent driving for the case of two coupled cavity-QED systems. We discuss qualitative differences between these excitations scenarios, which are particular strong for higher-order photon-photon correlations: $g^{(n)}(0)$ with $ n>2 $. Quantum cascaded systems show a behavior differing from the idealized cases of individual coherent/incoherent driving and allow to produce qualitatively d…
We study the dissipative dynamics and the formation of entangled states in driven cascaded quantum networks, where multiple systems are coupled to a common unidirectional bath. Specifically, we identify the conditions under which emission and coherent reabsorption of radiation drives the whole network into a pure stationary state with non-trivial quantum correlations between the individual nodes. We illustrate this effect in more detail for the example of cascaded two-level systems, where we present an explicit preparation scheme that allows one to tune the whole network through "bright" and "…
Superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors promise efficient (~100%) and fast (~Gcps) detection of light at the single-photon level. They constitute one of the building blocks to realize integrated quantum optical circuits in a waveguide architecture. The optical response of single-photon detectors, however, is limited to measure only the presence of photons. It misses the capability to resolve the spectrum of a possible broadband illumination. In this work, we propose the optical design for a superconducting nanowire single-photon spectrometer in an integrated optical platform. We explo…
Photonic losses pose a major limitation for implementation of quantum state transfer between nodes of a quantum network. A measurement that heralds successful transfer without revealing any information about the qubit may alleviate this limitation. Here, we demonstrate heralded absorption of a single photonic qubit generated by a single neutral quantum dot, by a single-electron charged quantum dot that is located 5 meters away. The transfer of quantum information to the spin degree of freedom takes place upon emission of a photon: for a properly chosen or prepared quantum dot, detection of thi…
It is challenging for observing superbunching effect with true chaotic light, here we propose and demonstrate a method to achieve superbunching effect of the degree of second-order coherence is 2.42 with broadband stationary chaotic light based on a cascaded Michelson interferometer (CMI), exceeding the theoretical upper limit of 2 for the two-photon bunching effect of chaotic light. The superbunching correlation peak is measured with an ultrafast two-photon absorption detector which the full width at half maximum reaches about 95 fs. Two-photon superbunching theory in a CMI is developed to in…
Resonance fluorescence from atomic systems consists of a single spectral peak that evolves into a Mollow triplet for a strong excitation field. Photons from different peaks of the triplet show distinct photon correlation that make the fluorescence a useful light source for quantum information purpose. We characterize the fluorescence of a single optically trapped $^{87}$Rb atom that is excited resonantly at different power levels. Second-order correlation measurements reveal the single photon nature of the fluorescence concurrently with Rabi oscillations of a strongly excited atom. The asymmet…
We theoretically investigate the spectral entanglement of a multiphoton source generated from the cascade emissions in the cascaded cold atomic ensembles.\ This photon source is highly directional, guaranteed under the four-wave mixing condition, and is also highly frequency-correlated due to finite driving pulse durations and superradiant decay constants.\ We utilize Schmidt decomposition to study the bipartite entanglement of the biphoton states projected from the multiphoton ones.\ This entropy of entanglement can be manipulated by controlling the driving parameters and superradiant decay r…
Nonlinear cascaded quantum network with giant emitters
Shaanxi Province Key Laboratory of Quantum Information and Quantum Optoelectronic Devices, School of Physics, Xi’an Jiaotong University（西安交通大学物理学院）；Center for Quantum Computing, RIKEN（理化学研究所量子计算中心）；Center for Quantum Sciences and School of Physics, Northeast Normal University（东北师范大学物理学院）；Department of Microtechnology and Nanoscience, Chalmers University of Technology（查尔姆斯理工大学微技术与纳米科学系）；School of Physics and Optoelectronics, South China University of Technology（华南理工大学物理与光电工程学院）；Physics Department, The University of Michigan（密歇根大学物理系）
We propose and analyze a passive architecture for realizing on-chip, scalable cascaded quantum devices. In contrast to standard approaches, our scheme does not rely on breaking Lorentz reciprocity. Rather, we engineer the interplay between pairs of superconducting transmon qubits and a microwave transmission line, in such a way that two delocalized orthogonal excitations emit (and absorb) photons propagating in opposite directions. We show how such cascaded quantum devices can be exploited to passively probe and measure complex many-body operators on quantum registers of stationary qubits, thu…
We present a new method for the spectral characterization of pulsed twin beam sources in the high gain regime, using cascaded stimulated emission. We show an implementation of this method for a ppKTP spontaneous parametric down-conversion source generating up to 60 photon pairs per pulse, and demonstrate excellent agreement between our experiments and our theory. This work enables the complete and accurate experimental characterization of high gain effects in parametric down conversion, including self and cross-phase modulation. Moreover, our theory allows the exploration of designs with the g…
We demonstrate photon-pair generation in a reverse proton exchanged waveguide fabricated on a periodically poled magnesium doped stoichiometric lithium tantalate substrate. Detected pairs are generated via a cascaded second order nonlinear process where a pump laser at wavelength of 1.55 $μ$m is first doubled in frequency by second harmonic generation and subsequently downconverted around the same spectral region. Pairs are detected at a rate of 42 per second with a coincidence to accidental ratio of 0.7. This cascaded pair generation process is similar to four-wave-mixing where two pump photo…
It has been a longstanding goal in quantum optics to realize controllable sources generating joint multiphoton states, particularly, photon triplet with arbitrary spectral characteristics. We demonstrate that such sources can be realized via cascaded parametric down-conversion (PDC) in superlattice structures of nonlinear and linear segments. We consider scheme that involves two parametric processes: $ω_{0}\rightarrowω_{1}+ω_{2}$, $ω_{2}\rightarrowω_{1}+ω_{1}$ under pulsed pump and investigate spontaneous creation of photon triplet as well as generation of high-intensity mode in intracavity th…
We propose using nonlinear Mach-Zehnder interferometer (NMZI) to efficiently prepare photonic quantum states from a classical input. We first analytically investigate the simple NMZI that can filtrate single photon state from weak coherent state by preferrentially blocking two-photon component. As a generalization, we show that the cascaded NMZI can deterministically extract arbitrary quantum state from a strong coherent state. Finally, we numerically demonstrate that the cascaded NMZI can be very efficient in both the input power and the level of cascade. The protocol of quantum state prepara…
Making analogy with atomic physics is a powerful tool for photonic technology, witnessed by the recent development in topological photonics and non-Hermitian photonics based on parity-time symmetry. Mollow triplet is a prominent atomic effect with both fundamental and technological importance. Here we demonstrate the analogue of Mollow triplet with quantum photonic systems. Photonic entanglement is generated with spontaneous nonlinear processes in dressed photonic modes, which are introduced through coherent multimode coupling. We further demonstrate the flexibility of the photonic system to r…
Photon pairs, squeezed light and the quantum wave mixing effect in a cascaded qubit system
Dukhov Research Institute of Automatics (VNIIA)（杜霍夫自动技术研究所）；Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology（莫斯科物理技术学院）；Institute for Theoretical and Applied Electrodynamics, Russian Academy of Sciences（俄罗斯科学院理论与应用电动力学研究所）；Kotel’nikov Institute of Radio Engineering and Electronics, Russian Academy of Sciences（俄罗斯科学院科捷利尼科夫无线电工程与电子学研究所）；HSE University（高等经济学院）；Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology（斯科尔科沃科学技术学院）
Applying high power continuous-wave resonant s-shell excitation to a single self-assembled In- GaAs quantum dot, we demonstrate the generation of post-selected single-indistinguishable photons from the Mollow triplet sidebands. A sophisticated spatial filtering technique based on a double Michelson interferometer enabled us to separate the spectrally close lying individual Mollow components and perform almost background free two-photon interference measurements. Showing high consistency with the results of an independent determination of the emission coherence of 250 +/- 30 ps, our analysis re…
We study theoretically the cascaded four-wave mixing (FWM) in broadband tapered plasmonic nanoantennas and demonstrate a 300-fold increase in nonlinear frequency conversion detected in the main lobe of the nanoantenna far-field pattern. This is achieved by tuning the elements of the nanoantenna to resonate frequencies involved into the FWM interaction. Our findings have a potentially broad application in ultrafast nonlinear spectroscopy, sensing, on-chip optical frequency conversion, nonlinear optical metamaterials and photon sources.
Quantum entanglement is an integral part of quantum optics and has been exploited in areas such as computation, cryptography and metrology. The entanglement between photons can be present in various degrees of freedom (DOFs), and even the simplest bi-partite systems can occupy a large Hilbert space. Therefore, it is desirable to exploit this multi-dimensional space for various quantum applications by fully controlling the properties of the entangled photons in multiple DOFs. While current entangled-photon sources are capable of generating entanglement in one or more DOFs, there is currently a …
Emission from a resonantly excited quantum emitter is a fascinating research topic within quantum optics and a useful source for different types of quantum light fields. The resonance spectrum consists of a single spectral line below saturation of a quantum emitter which develops into a triplet at powers above saturation of the emitter. The spectral properties of the triplet strongly depends on pump power and detuning of the excitation laser. The three closely spaced photon channels from the resonance fluorescence have different photon statistical signatures. We present a detailed photon-stati…
