Reconfigurable single photon sources based on functional materials

Abstract

The future of quantum photonic technology depends on the realization of efficient sources of single photons, the ideal carriers of quantum information. Parametric downconversion (PDC) is a promising route to create highly coherent, spectrally pure single photons for quantum photonics using versatile group-velocity matching (GVM) and tailored nonlinearities. However, the functionality to actively control the poling period of nonlinear crystals used in PDC is currently missing, yet would enable to dynamically modify the wavelength of single photons produced in the PDC process. Here a detailed GVM study is presented for functional PMN-0.38PT material which can be dynamically repolled at ambient conditions with fields as low as 0.4 kV/mm. Our study reveals phase-matching conditions for spectrally pure single photon creation at 5-6 microns. Further, a practical approach is proposed for on-flight wavelength switching of the created single photons. The reported reconfigurable functionality benefits a wide range of emerging quantum-enhanced applications in the mid-IR spectral region where the choice of single photon sources is currently limited.

14 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (7)

• Satellite-to-ground quantum key distribution
• Quantum Illumination with Gaussian States
• A wavelength-tunable fiber-coupled source of narrowband entangled photons
• Generation of two-photon states with arbitrary degree of entanglement via nonlinear crystal superlattices
• Efficient generation of twin photons at telecom wavelengths with 10 GHz repetition-rate tunable comb laser
• Resonance fluorescence from a telecom-wavelength quantum dot
• In-plane emission of indistinguishable photons generated by an integrated quantum emitter