We report on a compact, simple and robust high brightness entangled photon source at room temperature. Based on a 30 mm long periodically poled potassium titanyl phosphate (PPKTP), the source produces non-collinear, type0 phase matched, degenerate photons at 810 nm with pair production rate as high 39.13 MHz per mW at room temperature. To the best of our knowledge, this is the highest photon pair rate generated using bulk crystals pump with continuous-wave laser. Combined with the inherently stable polarization Sagnac interferometer, the source produces entangled state violating the Bells inequality by nearly 10 standard deviations and a Bell state fidelity of 0.96. The compact footprint, simple and robust experimental design and room temperature operation, make our source ideal for various quantum communication experiments including long distance free space and satellite communications.
We present a scheme for obtaining entangled photons and quantum phase gates in a room-temperature four-state tripod-type atomic system with two-mode active Raman gain (ARG). We analyze the linear and nonlinear optical response of this ARG system and show that the scheme is fundamentally different from those based on electromagnetically induced transparency and hence can avoid significant probe-field absorption as well as temperature-related Doppler effect. We demonstrate that highly entangled photon pairs can be produced and rapidly responding polarization qubit phase gates can be constructed …
The biphotons, generated from a hot atomic vapor via the process of spontaneous four-wave mixing (SFWM), have the following merits: stable and tunable frequencies as well as linewidth. Such merits are very useful in the applications of long-distance quantum communication. However, the hot-atom SFWM biphoton sources previously had far lower values of generation rate per linewidth, i.e., spectral brightness, as compared with the sources of biphotons generated by the spontaneous parametric down conversion (SPDC) process. Here, we report a hot-atom SFWM source of biphotons with a linewidth of 960 …
Sub-diffraction-limit resolution, or super-resolution, had been successfully demonstrated by recent theoretical and experimental studies for two-point sources with ideal equal-brightness and strict incoherenceness. Unfortunately, practical situations of either non-equal brightness (i.e., unbalancenss) or partial coherence are shown to have fatal effects on resolution precision. As a step toward resolving such issues, we consider both effects together by including an entangled partner of the two-point sources. Unexpectedly, it is found that the two negative effects can counter affect each other…
We experimentally demonstrate a real-time quantum random number generator by using a room-temperature single-photon emitter from the defect in a commercial gallium nitride wafer. Thanks to the brightness of our single photon emitter, the raw bit generation rate is ~1.8 MHz, and the unbiased bit generation rate is ~420 kHz after von Neumann's randomness extraction procedure. Our results show that commercial gallium nitride wafer has great potential for the development of integrated high-speed quantum random number generator devices.
We report measurements of time-frequency entangled photon pairs and heralded single photons at 1550~nm wavelengths generated using a microring resonator pumped optically by a diode laser. Along with a high spectral brightness of pair generation, the conventional metrics used to describe performance, such as Coincidences-to-Accidentals Ratio (CAR), conditional self-correlation [$g^{(2)}(0)$], two-photon energy-time {F}ranson interferometric visibility etc. are shown to reach a high-performance regime not yet achieved by silicon photonics, and attained previously only by crystal, glass and fiber…
We present an integrated source of polarization entangled photon pairs in the telecom regime, which is based on type II-phasematched parametric down-conversion (PDC) in a Ti-indiffused waveguide in periodically poled lithium niobate. The domain grating -- consisting of an interlaced bi-periodic structure -- is engineered to provide simultaneous phase-matching of two PDC processes, and enables the direct generation of non-degenerate, polarization entangled photon pairs with a brightness of $B=7\times10^3$ pairs/(s mW GHz). The spatial separation of the photon pairs is accomplished by a fiber-op…
Maximally entangled photon pairs with a spatial degree of freedom is a potential way for realizing high-capacity quantum computing and communication. However, methods to generate such entangled states with high quality, high brightness, and good controllability are needed. Here, a scheme is experimentally demonstrated that generates spatially maximally entangled photon pairs with an orbital angular momentum degree of freedom via spontaneous parametric down-conversion in a nonlinear crystal. Compared with existing methods using post-selection, the technique can directly modulate the spatial spe…
In this letter, we report a compact, low-power laser diode-pumped, all-fiber polarization-entangled photon pair source based on periodically-poled silica fiber technology. The all-fiber source offers room-temperature, alignment-free, turn-key operation, with low power consumption, and is packaged into a fanless, portable enclosure. It features a broad biphoton spectrum of more than 100nm with a concurrence that is greater than 0.96 for polarization entanglement. The source is stable over at least 10 hours of continuous operation, achieving coincidence-to-accidental ratios of more than 2000 con…
Engineering the directionality and emission rate of quantum light sources is essential in the development of modern quantum applications.In this work we use numerical calculations to optimize the brightness of a broadband quantum emitter positioned in a hybrid metal-dielectric circular periodic nanoantenna. The optimized structure features a photon collection efficiency of 74% (82%) and a photon flux enhancement of over 10 (6) into a numerical aperature of 0.22 (0.50) respectively, corresponding to a direct coupling into two types of multimode fibers. In order to enhance the emission rate, we …
On-chip photon sources carrying orbital angular momentum (OAM) are in demand for high-capacity optical information processing in both classical and quantum regimes. However, currently-exploited integrated OAM sources have been primarily limited to the classical regime. Herein, we demonstrate a room-temperature on-chip integrated OAM source that emits well-collimated single photons, with a single-photon purity of g(2)(0) = 0.22, carrying entangled spin and orbital angular momentum states and forming two spatially separated entangled radiation channels with different polarization properties. The…
We demonstrate the generation of polarization-entangled photon pairs at room temperature and telecom wavelength in a AlGaAs semiconductor waveguide. The source is based on spontaneous parametric down conversion with a counterpropagating phase-matching scheme. The quality of the two-photon state is assessed by the reconstruction of the density matrix giving a raw fidelity to a Bell state of 0.83; a theoretical model, taking into account the experimental parameters, provides ways to understand and control the amount of entanglement. Its compatibility with electrical injection, together with the …
Air-stable bright entangled photon-pair source from graphene-encapsulated van der Waals ferroelectric NbOI2
Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR)（科学技术研究局）；Australian National University（澳大利亚国立大学）；Institute of Materials Research and Engineering (IMRE)（材料研究与工程学院）；School of Engineering, College of Engineering, Computing and Cybernetics, the Australian National University（澳大利亚国立大学工程、计算与网络科学学院）；Centre for Quantum Technologies (CQT), National University of Singapore (NUS)（新加坡国立大学量子技术中心）
High-flux entangled photon source is the key resource for quantum optical study and application. Here it is realized in a lithium niobate on isolator (LNOI) chip, with 2.79*10^11 Hz/mW photon pair rate and 1.53*10^9 Hz/nm/mW spectral brightness. These data are boosted by over two orders of magnitude compared to existing technologies. A 130-nm broad bandwidth is engineered for 8-channel multiplexed energy-time entanglement. Harnessed by high-extinction frequency correlation and Franson interferences up to 99.17% visibility, such energy-time entanglement multiplexing further enhances high-flux d…
The generation of nonclassical states of light in miniature chips is a crucial step towards practical implementations of future quantum technologies. Semiconductor materials are ideal to achieve extremely compact and massively parallel systems and several platforms are currently under development. In this context, spontaneous parametric down conversion in AlGaAs devices combines the advantages of room temperature operation, possibility of electrical injection and emission in the telecom band. Here we report on a chip-based AlGaAs source, producing indistinguishable and energy-time entangled ph…
Quantum Dots as Solid-State Sources of Entangled Photon Pairs
Beijing Institute of Technology（北京理工大学）；Singapore University of Technology and Design（新加坡科技设计大学）；Agency for Science Technology and Research (A*STAR)（科学技术研究局）；Eastern Institute of Technology（东方理工学院）；University of Southern Denmark（南丹麦大学）；Nanyang Technological University（南洋理工大学）
Spatial states of single photons and spatially entangled photon pairs are becoming an important resource in quantum communication. This additional degree of freedom provides an almost unlimited information capacity, making the development of high-quality sources of spatial entanglement a well-motivated research direction. We report an experimental method for generation of photon pairs in a maximally entangled spatial state. In contrast to existing techniques the method does not require post-selection and allows one to use the full photon flux from the nonlinear crystal, providing a tool for cr…
The ultimate goal of quantum information science is to build a global quantum network, which enables quantum resources to be distributed and shared between remote parties. Such quantum network can be realized by all fiber elements, which takes advantage of low transmission loss,low cost, scalable and mutual fiber communication techniques such as dense wavelength division multiplexing. Therefore high quality entangled photon sources based on fibers are on demanding for building up such kind of quantum network. Here we report multiplexed polarization and timebin entanglement photon sources based…
Photonic qubits should be controllable on-chip and noise-tolerant when transmitted over optical networks for practical applications. Furthermore, qubit sources should be programmable and have high brightness to be useful for quantum algorithms and grant resilience to losses. However, widespread encoding schemes only combine at most two of these properties. Here, we overcome this hurdle by demonstrating a programmable silicon nano-photonic chip generating frequency-bin entangled photons, an encoding scheme compatible with long-range transmission over optical links. The emitted quantum states ca…
Establishing quantum entanglement between individual nodes is crucial for building large-scale quantum networks, enabling secure quantum communication, distributed quantum computing, enhanced quantum metrology and fundamental tests of quantum mechanics. However, the shared entanglements have been merely observed in either extremely low-temperature or well-isolated systems, which limits the quantum networks for the real-life applications. Here, we report the realization of heralding quantum entanglement between two atomic ensembles at room temperature, where each of them contains billions of mo…
Versatile and high-brightness sources of high-dimensional entangled photon pairs are important for emerging quantum technologies such as secure quantum communication. Here, we experimentally demonstrate a new scalable method to create photon pairs carrying orbital angular momentum that are entangled in arbitrarily high dimensions. Our method relies on indistinguishable photon pairs created coherently in different sources. We demonstrate the creation of three-dimensionally entangled states and show how to incrementally increase the dimensionality of entanglement. The generated states retain the…
Narrowband and high-rate entangled photon-pair generation from a high-Q silicon microring resonator
NTT Basic Research Laboratories（NTT基础研究所）；Graduate School of Engineering, Hokkaido University（北海道大学大学院工学研究科）；NTT Device Technology Laboratories（NTT器件技术研究所）；NTT Nanophotonics Center（NTT纳米光子学中心）
Metasurfaces consisting of nano-scale structures are underpinning new physical principles for the creation and shaping of quantum states of light. Multi-photon states that are entangled in spatial or angular domains are an essential resource for quantum imaging and sensing applications, however their production traditionally relies on bulky nonlinear crystals. We predict and demonstrate experimentally the generation of spatially entangled photon pairs through spontaneous parametric down-conversion from a metasurface incorporating a nonlinear thin film of lithium niobate. This is achieved throu…
Single silicon vacancy (SiV) color centers in diamond have recently shown the ability for high brightness, narrow bandwidth, room temperature single photon emission. This work develops a model describing the three level population dynamics of single SiV centers in diamond nanocrystals on iridium surfaces including an intensity dependent de-shelving process. Furthermore, we investigate the brightness and photostability of single centers and find maximum single photon rates of 6.2 Mcps under continuous excitation. We investigate the collection efficiency of the fluorescence and estimate quantum …
Integrated polarization-entangled photon source for wavelength-multiplexed quantum networks
Centre for Quantum Technologies, National University of Singapore（新加坡国立大学量子技术中心）；Department of Materials Science and Engineering, National University of Singapore（新加坡国立大学材料科学与工程系）；Department of Physics, National University of Singapore（新加坡国立大学物理系）
Deterministic GHz-rate single photon sources at room-temperature would be essential components for various quantum applications. However, both the slow intrinsic decay rate and the omnidirectional emission of typical quantum emitters are two obstacles towards achieving such a goal which are hard to overcome simultaneously. Here we solve this challenge by a hybrid approach, using a complex monolithic photonic resonator constructed of a gold nanocone responsible for the rate enhancement, and a circular Bragg antenna for emission directionality. A repeatable process accurately binds quantum dots …
Single-photon superradiance can emerge when a collection of identical emitters are spatially separated by distances much less than the wavelength of the light they emit, and is characterized by the formation of a superradiant state that spontaneously emits light with a rate that scales linearly with the number of emitters. This collective phenomena has only been demonstrated in a few nanomaterial systems, all requiring temperatures below 10K. Here, we rationally design a single colloidal nanomaterial that hosts multiple (nearly) identical emitters that are impervious to the fluctuations which …
Entangled photon sources (EPS), the major building block for a variety of quantum communication protocols, are commonly developed by utilizing the spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) in $χ^{2}$ nonlinear bulk optical materials. While high nonlinearity and long interaction length have established the superiority of the periodically poled crystals for EPSs, the phase-matching condition of such crystals is very sensitive to the fluctuation of the crystal temperature and the laser wavelength. As a result, deploying such sources outside the laboratory, for example, satellite-based applica…
Silicon-on-chip (SOI) photonic circuit is the most promising platform for scalable quantum information technology for its low loss, small footprint, CMOS-compatible and telecom communications techniques compatible. Multiple multiplexed entanglement sources include: energy-time, time-bin and polarization entangled sources based on 1-cm length single silicon nanowire, all these sources are compatible with (100GHz) dense-wave-division-multiplexing (DWDM) system. Different methods such as two photon interference pattern, Bell-Inequality and quantum state tomography are used to characterize the qua…
Ultrafast emission rates obtained from quantum emitters coupled to plasmonic nanoantennas have recently opened fundamentally new possibilities in quantum information and sensing applications. Plasmonic nanoantennas greatly improve the brightness of quantum emitters by dramatically shortening their fluorescence lifetimes. Gap plasmonic nanocavities that support strongly confined modes are of particular interest for such applications. We demonstrate single-photon emission from nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in nanodiamonds coupled to nanosized gap plasmonic cavities with internal mode volumes abo…
Biexcitons are a manifestation of many-body excitonic interactions crucial for quantum information and quantum computation in the construction of coherent combinations of quantum states. However, due to their small binding energy and low transition efficiency, most biexcitons in conventional semiconductors exist either at cryogenic temperature or under femtosecond pulse laser excitation. Here we demonstrate room temperature, continuous wave driven biexciton states in CsPbBr3 perovskite nanocrystals through coupling with a plasmonic nanogap. The room temperature CsPbBr3 biexciton excitation flu…
Single-emitter plasmonic patch antennas are room-temperature deterministic single photon sources, which exhibit highly accelerated and directed single photon emission. However, for efficient operation these structures require three-dimensional nanoscale deterministic control of emitter positioning within the device, which is a demanding task, esp. when emitter damage during fabrication is a major concern. To overcome this limitation, our deterministic room-temperature in situ optical lithography protocol uses spatially modulated light to position a plasmonic structure non-destructively on any …
We report an efficient energy-time entangled photon-pair source based on four-wave mixing in a CMOS-compatible silicon photonics ring resonator. Thanks to suitable optimization, the source shows a large spectral brightness of 400\,pairs of entangled photons /s/MHz for $\rm 500\,μW$ pump power. Additionally, the resonator has been engineered so as to generate a frequency comb structure compatible with standard telecom dense wavelength division multiplexers. We demonstrate high-purity energy-time entanglement, i.e., free of photonic noise, with near perfect raw visibilities ($>$~98\%) between va…
Transferring entangled states between photon pairs is essential for quantum communication technologies. Semiconductor quantum dots are the most promising candidate for generating polarization-entangled photons deterministically. Recent improvements in photonic quality and brightness now make them suited for complex quantum optical purposes in practical devices. Here we demonstrate for the first time swapping of entangled states between two pairs of photons emitted by a single quantum dot. A joint Bell measurement heralds the successful generation of the Bell state $Ψ^+$ with a fidelity of up t…
Optically active defects in 2D materials, such as hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) and transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), are an attractive class of single-photon emitters with high brightness, room-temperature operation, site-specific engineering of emitter arrays, and tunability with external strain and electric fields. In this work, we demonstrate a novel approach to precisely align and embed hBN and TMDs within background-free silicon nitride microring resonators. Through the Purcell effect, high-purity hBN emitters exhibit a cavity-enhanced spectral coupling efficiency up to $46\%$ at …
We demonstrate on chip generation of correlated pairs of photons in the near-visible spectrum using a CMOS compatible PECVD Silicon Nitride photonic device. Photons are generated via spontaneous four wave mixing enhanced by a ring resonator with high quality Q-factor of 320,000 resulting in a generation rate of 950,000 $\frac{pairs}{mW}$. The high brightness of this source offers the opportunity to expand photonic quantum technologies over a broad wavelength range and provides a path to develop fully integrated quantum chips working at room temperature.
We present a compact, fibre-coupled single photon source using gradient-index (GRIN) lenses and an InAsP semiconductor quantum dot embedded within an InP photonic nanowire waveguide. A GRIN lens assembly is used to collect photons close to the tip of the nanowire, coupling the light immediately into a single mode optical fibre. The system provides a stable, high brightness source of fibre-coupled single photons. Using pulsed excitation, we demonstrate on-demand operation with a single photon purity of 98.5% when exciting at saturation in a device with a source-fibre collection efficiency of 35…
Hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) is an emerging two dimensional material for quantum photonics owing to its large bandgap and hyperbolic properties. Here we report a broad range of multicolor room temperature single photon emissions across the visible and the near infrared spectral ranges from point defects in hBN multilayers. We show that the emitters can be categorized into two general groups, but most likely possess similar crystallographic structure. We further show two approaches for engineering of the emitters using either electron beam irradiation or annealing, and characterize their photo…
Single photon emitters play a central role in many photonic quantum technologies. A promising class of single photon emitters consists of atomic color centers in wide-bandgap crystals, such as diamond silicon carbide and hexagonal boron nitride. However, it is currently not possible to grow these materials as sub-micron thick films on low-refractive index substrates, which is necessary for mature photonic integrated circuit technologies. Hence, there is great interest in identifying quantum emitters in technologically mature semiconductors that are compatible with suitable heteroepitaxies. Her…
Room Temperature Collective Blinking and Photon Bunching from CsPbBr3 Quantum Dot Superlattice
Institute of Science Tokyo（东京科学大学）；Katholieke Universiteit Leuven（荷语鲁汶大学）；Lingnan Normal University（岭南师范学院）；Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research（马克斯·普朗克聚合物研究所）
Laboratoire Matériaux et Phénomènes Quantiques, Université Paris Cité（量子物质与现象实验室，巴黎西岱大学）；Centre de Nanosciences et Nanotechnologies, Université Paris-Saclay（纳米科学与纳米技术研究中心，巴黎萨克雷大学）；STMicroelectronics（意法半导体）
Electron-beam Writing of Spectrally Uniform Green Single-photon Emitters in Hexagonal Boron Nitride
Hangzhou Institute for Advanced Study, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院大学杭州高等研究院）；Zhejiang University（浙江大学）；University of Science and Technology of China（中国科学技术大学）；Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院上海光学精密机械研究所）
