Optical Frequency Down-Conversion With Bandwidth Compression Based on Counter-Propagating Phase Matching

Dong-Jie Guo,Yi-Chen Liu,Yan-Xiao Gong,Jia-Chen Duan,Zhenda Xie,Ran Yang,Shi-Ning Zhu

doi:10.3389/fphy.2021.752137

Abstract

Optical quantum network plays an important role in large scale quantum communication. However, different components for photon generation, transmission, storage and manipulation in network usually cannot interact directly due to the wavelength and bandwidth differences, and thus interfaces are needed to overcome such problems. We propose an optical interface for frequency down-conversion and bandwidth compression based on the counter-propagating quasi-phase-matching difference frequency generation process in the periodically-poled lithium niobate on insulator waveguide. We prove that a separable spectral transfer function can be obtained only by choosing proper pump bandwidth, thus relaxing the limitation of material, dispersion, and working wavelength as a result of the counter-propagation phase-matching configuration. With numerical simulations, we show that our design results in a nearly separable transfer function with the Schmidt number very close to 1. With proper pump bandwidth, an photon at central wavelength of 550 nm with a bandwidth ranging from 50 GHz to 5 THz can be converted to a photon at central wavelength of 1,545 nm with a much narrower bandwidth of 33 GHz.

Highlights

Photons play an important role in quantum information science, such as long distance quantum communication [1,2], linear optical quantum computation [3,4] and interface to quantum memories [5,6]
Sum frequency generation (SFG) [10,11,12] and difference-frequency generation (DFG) [13] in nonlinear optical process are beneficial to frequency conversion between different frequency bands and have been utilized as an interface between the visible and communication wavelength bands [14,15,16]
By varying the height and width, light dispersion can be tuned in the lithium niobate on insulator (LNOI) waveguide

Summary

Introduction

Photons play an important role in quantum information science, such as long distance quantum communication [1,2], linear optical quantum computation [3,4] and interface to quantum memories [5,6]. In these applications, different devices and systems usually require different photon central frequencies and bandwidths.

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion