Quantum light sources based on third-order nonlinear waveguides

Abstract

This paper introduces our recent works on quantum light sources based on third-order nonlinear waveguides. Based on the spontaneous four wave mixing (SFWM) effect in optical fibers, we realized high quality correlated photon pair generation. A fiber based heralded single photon source (HSPS) with a preparation efficiency of ~80% under a g²(0) of 0.06 was realized based on it. On the other hand, we demonstrated that the vector scattering processes of the SFWM can be suppressed effectively by the polarization walk off effect in the polarization maintaining fibers (PMFs), by which polarization entangled photon pair generation was realized in a piece of PMF experimentally. We also realized correlated photon pair generation in silicon wire waveguides fabricated by ourselves, demonstrating its low noise performance. These works shows that SFWM in third-order nonlinear waveguides provides a promising way to realize practical quantum light sources compatible with today’s engineering technologies.