Low-noise frequency conversion of single photons is a critical tool in establishing fibre-based quantum networks. We show that a single photonic crystal fibre can achieve frequency conversion by Bragg-scattering four-wave mixing of source photons from an ultra-broad wavelength range by engineering a symmetric group velocity profile. Furthermore, we discuss how pump tuning can mitigate realistic discrepancies in device fabrication. This enables a single highly adaptable frequency conversion interface to link disparate nodes in a quantum network via the telecoms band.
Quantum frequency conversion, the process of shifting the frequency of an optical quantum state while preserving quantum coherence, can be used to produce non-classical light at otherwise unapproachable wavelengths. We present experimental results based on highly efficient sum-frequency generation (SFG) between a vacuum squeezed state at 1064 nm and a tunable pump source at 850 nm $\pm$ 50 nm for the generation of bright squeezed light at 472~nm $\pm$ 4~nm, currently limited by the phase-matching of the used nonlinear crystal. We demonstrate that the SFG process conserves part of the quantum c…
We introduce a simple approach for a tunable up-conversion detector. This scheme is relevant for both single photon detection or anywhere where low light levels at telecom wavelengths need to be detected with a high degree of temporal resolution or where high count rates are desired. A system combining a periodically poled Lithium niobate waveguide for the nonlinear wavelength conversion and a low jitter Silicon avalanche photodiode are used in conjunction with a tunable pump source. We report more than a ten-fold increase in the detectable bandwidth using this tuning scheme.
We study the single-photon frequency conversion of a five-level emitter coupled to a Sagnac interferometer. We show that the unity conversion efficiency can be achieved either in resonance or off-resonance case under the ideal condition. In particular, the frequency of the output photon can be controlled by the frequencies and Rabi frequencies of the external driving fields.
We test two-dimensional TPSA of biphoton light emitted via ultrafast spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) using the effect of group-velocity dispersion in optical fibres. Further, we apply this technique to demonstrate the engineering of biphoton spectral properties by acting on the pump pulse shape.
Low-noise, tunable wavelength-conversion through non-degenerate four-wave mixing Bragg scattering in SiNx waveguides is experimentally demonstrated. Finite element method simulations of waveguide dispersion are used with the split-step Fourier method to predict device performance, and indicate a strong dependence of the conversion efficiency on phase matching, which is controlled by the waveguide geometry. Two 1550 nm wavelength band pulsed pumps are used to achieve tunable conversion of a 980 nm signal over a range of 5 nm with a peak conversion efficiency of \approx 5 %. The demonstrated Bra…
We show that broadband biphoton wavepackets produced via Spontaneous Parametric Down-Conversion (SPDC) in crystals with linearly aperiodic poling can be easily compressed in time using the effect of group-velocity dispersion in optical fibres. This result could foster important developments in quantum metrology and lithography.
On-demand indistinguishable single photon sources are essential for quantum networking and communication. Semiconductor quantum dots are among the most promising candidates, but their typical emission wavelength renders them unsuitable for use in fibre networks. Here, we present quantum frequency conversion of near-infrared photons from a bright quantum dot to the telecommunication C-band, allowing integration with existing fibre architectures. We use a custom-built, tunable 2400 nm seed laser to convert single photons from 942 nm to 1550 nm in a difference frequency generation process. We ach…
Reconfigurable quantum circuits are fundamental building blocks for the implementation of scalable quantum technologies. Their implementation has been pursued in linear optics through the engineering of sophisticated interferometers. While such optical networks have been successful in demonstrating the control of small-scale quantum circuits, scaling up to larger dimensions poses significant challenges. Here, we demonstrate a potentially scalable route towards reconfigurable optical networks based on the use of a multimode fibre and advanced wavefront-shaping techniques. We program networks in…
The interplay between electronic properties and optical response enables the realization of novel types of materials with tunable responses. Superconductors are well known to exhibit profound changes in the electronic structure related to the formation of Cooper pairs, yet their influence on the electromagnetic response in the optical regime has remained largely unstudied. Photonics metamaterials offer new opportunities to enhance the light-matter interaction, boosting the influence of subtle effects on the optical response. The combination of photonic metamaterials and superconducting quantum…
All-optical control of coherent perfect absorption via frequency conversion
Graduate School of Engineering Science, The University of Osaka（大阪大学工学研究科）；Center for Quantum Information and Quantum Biology, The University of Osaka（大阪大学量子信息与量子生物学中心）；Graduate School of Engineering, Kochi University of Technology（高知工科大学工学研究科）；Experimental Quantum Information Physics Unit, Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University（冲绳科学技术大学院大学实验量子信息物理单元）
We present the first observation of two-photon polarization interference structure in the second-order Glauber's correlation function of two-photon light generated via type-II spontaneous parametric down-conversion. In order to obtain this result, two-photon light is transmitted through an optical fibre and the coincidence distribution is analyzed by means of the START-STOP method. Beyond the experimental demonstration of an interesting effect in quantum optics, these results also have considerable relevance for quantum communications.
We investigate the absorption and transmission properties of a weak probe field under the influence of a strong control field in a hybrid cavity magnomechanical system in the microwave regime. This hybrid system consists of two ferromagnetic material yttrium iron garnet (YIG) spheres strongly coupled to a single cavity mode. In addition to two magnon-induced transparency (MIT) that arise due to strong photon-magnon interactions, we observe a magnomechanically induced transparency (MMIT) due to the presence of nonlinear phonon-magnon interaction. In addition, we discuss the emergence and tunabi…
Heralded entanglement between distant quantum memories is the key resource for quantum networks. Based on quantum repeater protocols, these networks will facilitate efficient large-scale quantum communication and distributed quantum computing. However, despite vast efforts, long-distance fibre based network links have not been realized yet. Here we present results demonstrating heralded entanglement between two independent, remote single-atom quantum memories generated over fibre links with a total length up to 33 km. To overcome the attenuation losses in the long optical fibres of photons ini…
Coherent control of the spatial properties of light is central to a wide variety of applications from high bandwidth quantum and classical communication to high power fiber lasers. Low-loss conversion amongst a complete and orthogonal set of modes is particularly important for robust mode-multiplexed communication. Here, we introduce tunable impedance mismatch between coupled Fabry-Pérot resonators as a powerful tool for manipulation of the spatial and temporal properties of optical fields. In the single-mode regime, frequency dependent impedance matching enables tunable finesse optical resona…
In the quantum world, a single particle can have various degrees of freedom to encode quantum information. Controlling multiple degrees of freedom simultaneously is necessary to describe a particle fully and, therefore, to use it more efficiently. Here we introduce the transverse waveguide-mode degree of freedom to quantum photonic integrated circuits, and demonstrate the coherent conversion of a photonic quantum state between path, polarization and transverse waveguide-mode degrees of freedom on a single chip. The preservation of quantum coherence in these conversion processes is proven by si…
Solid-state microcavities combining ultra-small mode volume, wide-range resonance frequency tuning, as well as lossless coupling to a single mode fibre are integral tools for nanophotonics and quantum networks. We developed an integrated system providing all of these three indispensable properties. It consists of a nanofibre Bragg cavity (NFBC) with the mode volume of under 1 micro cubic meter and repeatable tuning capability over more than 20 nm at visible wavelengths. In order to demonstrate quantum light-matter interaction, we establish coupling of quantum dots to our tunable NFBC and achie…
Miniaturised entangled photon sources are highly demanded for the development of integrated quantum photonics. Since the invention of subwavelength optical metasurfaces and their successes at replacing bulky optical components, the possibility of implementing entangled photon sources on such devices is actively investigated. Here, as a first step towards the development of quantum optical metasurfaces (QOM), we demonstrate photon pair generation via spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) from subwavelength films. We achieved photon pair generation with a high coincidence-to-accidental r…
Optical cavities are of central importance in numerous areas of physics, including precision measurement, cavity optomechanics and cavity quantum electrodynamics. The miniaturisation and scaling to large numbers of sites is of interest for many of these applications, in particular for quantum computation and simulation. Here we present the first scaled microcavity system which enables the creation of large numbers of highly uniform, tunable light-matter interfaces using ions, neutral atoms or solid-state qubits. The microcavities are created by means of silicon micro-fabrication, are coupled d…
Distributing entangled photon pairs over noisy channels is an important task for various quantum information protocols. Encoding an entangled state in a decoherence-free subspace (DFS) formed by multiple photons is a promising way to circumvent the phase fluctuations and polarization rotations in optical fibres. Recently, it has been shown that the use of a counter-propagating coherent light as an ancillary photon enables us to faithfully distribute entangled photon with success probability proportional to the transmittance of the optical fibres. Several proof-of-principle experiments have bee…
Optical frequency conversion has applications ranging from tunable light sources to telecommunications-band interfaces for quantum information science. Here, we demonstrate efficient, low-noise frequency conversion on a nanophotonic chip through four-wave-mixing Bragg scattering in compact (footprint < 0.5 x 10^-4 cm^2) Si3N4 microring resonators. We investigate three frequency conversion configurations: (1) spectral translation over a few nanometers within the 980 nm band, (2) upconversion from 1550 nm to 980 nm, and (3) downconversion from 980 nm to 1550 nm. With conversion efficiencies rang…
Quantum states encoded in microwave photons or qubits can be effectively manipulated, whereas optical photons can be coherently transferred via optical fibre and waveguide. The reversible conversion of quantum states between microwave and optical photons will hence enable the distribution of quantum information over long distance and significantly improve the scalability of hybrid quantum systems. Owning to technological advances, mechanical resonators couple to quantum devices in distinctly different spectral range with tunable coupling, and can serve as a powerful interface to connect those …
The concept of `flat optics' is quickly conquering different fields of photonics, but its implementation in quantum optics is still at infancy. In particular, polarization entanglement, which is central to quantum photonics due to the simplicity of polarization qubit encoding and control, is so far not realized on flat platforms. Meanwhile, relaxed phase matching of flat nonlinear optical sources enables enormous freedom in tailoring their polarization properties. Here we use this freedom to generate photon pairs with tunable polarization entanglement via spontaneous parametric down-conversion…
We describe a new scheme to fully control the joint spectrum of paired photons generated in spontaneous parametric down-conversion. We show the capability of this method to generate frequency-uncorrelated photon pairs that are pure and indistinguishable, and whose bandwidth can be readily tuned. Importantly, the scheme we propose here can be implemented in any nonlinear crystal and frequency band of interest.
We describe a new version of continuous variables quantum holographic teleportation of optical images. Unlike the previously proposed scheme, it is based on the continuous variables quantum entanglement between the light fields of different frequencies and allows for the wavelength conversion between the original and the teleported images. The frequency tunable holographic teleportation protocol can be used as a part of light-matter interface in parallel quantum information processing and parallel quantum memory
The on-chip integration of quantum light sources has enabled the realization of complex quantum photonic circuits. However, for the practical implementation of such circuits in quantum information applications it is crucial to develop sources delivering entangled quantum photon states with on-demand tunability. Here we propose and experimentally demonstrate the concept of a widely tunable quantum light source based on spontaneous parametric down-conversion in a nonlinear directional coupler. We show that spatial photon-pair correlations and entanglement can be reconfigured on-demand by tuning …
Heralded spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) has become the mainstay for single-photon state preparation in present-day photonics experiments. Because they are heralded, in principle one knows when a single photon has been prepared. However, the heralding efficiencies in experimentally realistic SPDC sources are typically very low. To overcome this, multiplexing techniques have been proposed which employ a bank of SPDC sources in parallel, and route successfully heralded photons to the output, thereby effectively boosting the heralding efficiency. However, running a large bank of ind…
Single photons provide excellent quantum information carriers, but current schemes for preparing, processing and measuring them are inefficient. For example, down-conversion provides heralded, but randomly timed single photons, while linear-optics gates are inherently probabilistic. Here, we introduce a deterministic scheme for photonic quantum information. Our single, versatile process---coherent photon conversion---provides a full suite of photonic quantum processing tools, from creating high-quality heralded single- and multiphoton states free of higher-order imperfections to implementing d…
We report a novel source of twin beams based on modulational instability in high-pressure argon-filled hollow-core kagomé-style photonic-crystal fibre. The source is Raman-free and manifests strong photon-number correlations for femtosecond pulses of squeezed vacuum with a record brightness of ~2500 photons per mode. The ultra-broadband (~50 THz) twin beams are frequency tunable and contain one spatial and less than 5 frequency modes.
We model a gyroscope that exploits quantum effects in an atomic Bose-Einstein condensate to gain a tunable enhancement in precision. Current inertial navigation systems rely on the Sagnac effect using unentangled photons in fibre-optic systems and there are proposals for improving how the precision scales with the number of particles by using entanglement. Here we exploit a different route based on sharp resonances associated with quantum phase transitions. By adjusting the interaction between the particles and/or the shape of their trapping potential we are able to tune the width of the reson…
We theoretically and experimentally investigate the spectral tunability and purity of photon pairs generated from spontaneous parametric down conversion in periodically poled $\mathrm{KTiOPO_4}$ crystal with group-velocity matching condition. The numerical simulation predicts that the purity of joint spectral intensity ($P_{JSI}$) and the purity of joint spectral amplitude ($P_{JSA}$) can be kept higher than 0.98 and 0.81, respectively, when the wavelength is tuned from 1460 nm to 1675 nm, which covers the S-, C-, L-, and U-band in telecommunication wavelengths. We also directly measured the j…
Based on constructive interference in Sagnac waveguide loop, an efficient scheme is proposed for selective frequency conversion and multifrequency modes W entanglement via input-output formalism. We can adjust the probability amplitudes of output photons by choosing parameter values properly. The tunable probability amplitude will lead to the generation of output photon with a selectable frequency and W photonic entanglement of different frequencies modes in a wide range of parameter values. Our calculations show the present scheme is robust to the deviation of parameters and spontaneous decay…
Since several papers appeared in 2000, the quantum key distribution (QKD) community has been well aware that photon number splitting (PNS) attack by Eve severely limits the secure key distribution distance in BB84 QKD systems with Poissonian photon sources. In attempts to solve this problem, entanglement-based QKD, single-photon based QKD, and entanglement swapping-based QKD, have been studied in recent years. However, there are many technological difficulties that must be overcome before these schemes can become practical systems. Here we report a very simple QKD system, in which secure keys …
We report the observation of efficient and low-noise frequency conversion between two microwave modes, mediated by the motion of a mechanical resonator subjected to radiation pressure. We achieve coherent conversion of more than $10^{12}~\mathrm{photons/s}$ with a $95\mathrm{\%}$ efficiency and a $14~\mathrm{kHz}$ bandwidth. With less than $10^{-1}~\mathrm{photons \cdot s^{-1}\cdot Hz^{-1}}$ of added noise, this optomechanical frequency converter is suitable for quantum state transduction. We show the ability to operate this converter as a tunable beam splitter, with direct applications for ph…
Trapped atomic ions are ideal single photon emitters with long lived internal states which can be entangled with emitted photons. Coupling the ion to an optical cavity enables efficient emission of single photons into a single spatial mode and grants control over their temporal shape. These features are key for quantum information processing and quantum communication. However, the photons emitted by these systems are unsuitable for long-distance transmission due to their wavelengths. Here we report the transmission of single photons from a single $^{40}\text{Ca}^{+}$ ion coupled to an optical …
We report on a new technique for entanglement distillation of the bipartite continuous variable state of spatially correlated photons generated in the spontaneous parametric down-conversion process (SPDC), where tunable non-Gaussian operations are implemented and the post-processed entanglement is certified in real-time using a single-photon sensitive electron multiplying CCD (EMCCD) camera. The local operations are performed using non-Gaussian filters modulated into a programmable spatial light modulator and, by using the EMCCD camera for actively recording the probability distributions of th…
Efficiently scaling quantum networks to long ranges requires local processing nodes to perform basic computation and communication tasks. Trapped ions have demonstrated all the properties required for the construction of such a node, storing quantum information for up to 12 minutes, implementing deterministic high fidelity logic operations on one and two qubits, and ion-photon coupling. While most ions suitable for quantum computing emit photons in visible to near ultraviolet (UV) frequency ranges poorly suited to long-distance fibre optical based networking, recent experiments in frequency co…
We report on the design and performance of an on-chip microwave circulator with a widely (GHz) tunable operation frequency. Non-reciprocity is created with a combination of frequency conversion and delay, and requires neither permanent magnets nor microwave bias tones, allowing on-chip integration with other superconducting circuits without the need for high-bandwidth control lines. Isolation in the device exceeds 20 dB over a bandwidth of tens of MHz, and its insertion loss is small, reaching as low as 0.9 dB at select operation frequencies. Furthermore, the device is linear with respect to i…
