Abstract
Optical homodyne detection has found use as a characterisation tool in a range of quantum technologies. So far implementations have been limited to bulk optics. Here we present the optical integration of a homodyne detector onto a silicon photonics chip. The resulting device operates at high speed, up 150 MHz, it is compact and it operates with low noise, quantified with 11 dB clearance between shot noise and electronic noise. We perform on-chip quantum tomography of coherent states with the detector and show that it meets the requirements for characterising more general quantum states of light. We also show that the detector is able to produce quantum random numbers at a rate of 1.2 Gbps, by measuring the vacuum state of the electromagnetic field and applying off-line post processing. The produced random numbers pass all the statistical tests provided by the NIST test suite.
Highlights
Optical homodyne detection has found use in a range of quantum technologies as both a characterisation tool and as a way to post-selectively generate non-linearities
We present a homodyne detector with all the necessary photonic components integrated onto a silicon chip
Integrated quantum photonics [9] is an approach aimed at miniaturising quantum optics components onto monolithic components in an effort to increase the scale with which phase stable quantum optics can be implemented
Summary
Optical homodyne detection has found use in a range of quantum technologies as both a characterisation tool and as a way to post-selectively generate non-linearities. We present the first homodyne detector fully integrated with silicon photonics and suitable for measurements of the quantum state of the electromagnetic field. Integrated quantum photonics [9] is an approach aimed at miniaturising quantum optics components onto monolithic components in an effort to increase the scale with which phase stable quantum optics can be implemented. This includes reconfigurable nested waveguide interferometry, on-chip optical nonlinearity and on-chip detectors [10]. This process of measurement and reconstruction is called optical homodyne tomography and has been studied in great detail [21]
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