Abstract
Correlated photon pairs are a fundamental building block of quantum photonic systems. While pair sources have previously been integrated on silicon chips built using customized photonics manufacturing processes, these often take advantage of only a small fraction of the established techniques for microelectronics fabrication and have yet to be integrated in a process that also supports electronics. Here we report the first demonstration of quantum-correlated photon pair generation in a device fabricated in an unmodified advanced (sub-100-nm) complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) process, alongside millions of working transistors. The microring resonator photon pair source is formed in the transistor layer structure, with the resonator core formed by the silicon layer typically used for the transistor body. With ultralow CW on-chip pump powers ranging from 4.8 to 400 μW, we demonstrate pair generation rates between 165 Hz and 332 kHz using >80% efficient WSi superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors. Coincidences-to-accidentals ratios consistently exceeding 40 were measured, with a maximum of 55. In the process of characterizing this source, we also accurately predict pair generation rates from the results of classical stimulated four-wave mixing measurements. This proof-of-principle device demonstrates the potential of commercial CMOS microelectronics as an advanced quantum photonics platform with the capability of large volumes and pristine process control, where state-of-the-art high-speed digital circuits could interact with quantum photonic circuits.
Highlights
Quantum photonic systems often consist of relatively large bulk-optical components and can significantly benefit from chip-scale integration [1,2,3,4], similar to how large-scale integration of transistors has revolutionized modern digital electronics
Systems have continued to scale to include on-chip interference between multiple integrated photon sources [28], demultiplexing of signal and idler photons [29, 30], and high-extinction pump rejection [31]. Many of these “complementary metal-oxidesemiconductor (CMOS)-compatible” implementations have relied on electron-beam lithography fabrication techniques and often include custom tailored silicon thicknesses that are typical in silicon photonics but are incompatible with advanced CMOS microelectronics, preventing monolithic integration of electronics and quantum photonics on a single chip
The relationship between stimulated and spontaneous four-wave mixing has been a subject of recent investigation [52] as it is useful to determine the effectiveness of predicting pair generation rates from classical FWM measurements
Summary
Quantum photonic systems often consist of relatively large bulk-optical components and can significantly benefit from chip-scale integration [1,2,3,4], similar to how large-scale integration of transistors has revolutionized modern digital electronics. Modeling after the success of CMOS, there has been great interest in implementing scalable quantum photonic devices in “CMOS-compatible” platforms to benefit from proven and reliable fabrication techniques These silicon photonics processes support high-performance classical devices such as filters [5,6,7], switches [8, 9], and delay lines [11,12,13] which are essential components of a reconfigurable quantum photonic system. Systems have continued to scale to include on-chip interference between multiple integrated photon sources [28], demultiplexing of signal and idler photons [29, 30], and high-extinction pump rejection [31] Many of these “CMOS-compatible” implementations have relied on electron-beam lithography fabrication techniques and often include custom tailored silicon thicknesses that are typical in silicon photonics but are incompatible with advanced CMOS microelectronics, preventing monolithic integration of electronics and quantum photonics on a single chip. We demonstrate the first source of quantum-correlated photon pairs directly integrated in an unmodified advanced CMOS process
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