Beatrice Da Lio - Paper
Beatrice Da Lio - Paper
Beatrice Da Lio, Carlos Faurby, Xiaoyan Zhou,∗ Ming Lai Chan, Ravitej Uppu,† and Henri Thyrrestrup
Center for Hybrid Quantum Networks (Hy-Q), Niels Bohr Institute,
University of Copenhagen, Blegdamsvej 17, DK-2100 Copenhagen, Denmark.
On-demand single-photon sources emitting pure and indistinguishable photons at the telecommu-
nication wavelength are a critical asset towards the deployment of fiber-based quantum networks.
Indeed, single photons may serve as flying qubits, allowing communication of quantum information
over long distances. Self-assembled InAs quantum dots embedded in GaAs constitute an excellent
nearly deterministic source of high quality single photons, but the vast majority of sources operate
in the 900-950 nm wavelength range, precluding their adoption in a quantum network. Here, we
present a quantum frequency conversion scheme for converting single photons from quantum dots to
the telecommunication C band, around 1550 nm, achieving 40.8% end-to-end efficiency, while main-
taining both high purity and a high degree of indistinguishability during conversion with measured
values of g (2) (0) = 2.4% and V (corr) = 94.8%, respectively.
Single photons at telecommunication wavelengths con- longer wavelengths, i.e. to the telecommunications O-
stitute a key resource for quantum communication, en- band (1300 nm) and C-band (1550 nm), by providing a
abling transmission of quantum information over long deeper electron-hole confinement. However, InAs QDs
distances across optical fiber networks without loss of co- in pseudomorphically strained InGaAs quantum wells [8]
herence. A complete quantum network would require the or grown by metalorganic vapour-phase epitaxy [9], typi-
ability to exchange information between matter qubits cally suffer from high dislocation densities or large back-
and photons with high fidelity. This demands a determin- ground impurity concentration, resulting in higher charge
istic emitter-photon interface capable of realizing photon noise, blinking, or low internal quantum efficiency from
generation and entanglement in a scalable manner [1]. In non-radiative decay channels. In fact, to date, several
combination with mature foundry-based silicon photonic demonstrations of single-photon emission at telecommu-
integrated circuit technology, the realization of a scalable nication wavelengths exist [10–21], but there are only few
quantum photonic technology is within reach. A solid- reports on the photon indistinguishability [22–24] where
state quantum emitter deterministically coupled to a cav- temporal post-selection was implemented at the cost of
ity or waveguide is an attractive source of on-demand reduced source efficiency. These works are important
single photons. In particular, self-assembled InAs quan- stepping stones towards the realization of a quantum net-
tum dots (QDs) in GaAs offer a mature technology for work and indeed prepare-and-measure quantum key dis-
photon generation and a platform for interfacing electron tribution protocols have already been implemented with
spin and photons in which the decoherence and noise pro- such sources, as they do not require indistinguishable
cesses have been identified and reduced [2–6]. Despite the photons [25–29]. However, the full potential of the tech-
excellent performance, a major drawback of InAs-based nology, e.g., in device-independent quantum key distri-
QD emitters is that the emission wavelength is typically bution or one-way quantum repeaters, is only realized
in the range of 900-950 nm. However, standard single with high-efficiency on-demand sources of indistinguish-
mode fibers experience the lowest attenuation coefficient able photons in the telecom range.
of 0.16 - 0.2 dB/km at around 1550 nm, while the at- An alternative route to reach this goal exploits quan-
tenuation in the 900-950 nm range is severely limited by tum frequency conversion (QFC) of the emitted single
Rayleigh scattering to about 1 - 1.5 dB/km [7]. Hence, photons to the C-band, thereby bridging the gap between
the QDs typical emission wavelength reduce their appli- the mature InAs emitter technology and quantum com-
cations to communication over only short distances and munications applications. Previous works have shown
impedes interfacing to advanced quantum photonic inte- efficient QFC to either the O-band [30] or the C-band
grated circuits on the silicon-on-insulator platform. [31, 32] while maintaining the purity of the single-photon
Controlling the epitaxial growth of self-assembled QDs source. Recently, Morrison et al. [33] also analysed the
does enable shifting the wavelength of the emitters to indistinguishability after QFC and reported two-photon
2
FIG. 1. Schematic of the experimental setup used for frequency conversion and measurements. a) Frequency
conversion setup. Single photons at 940 nm are emitted by a quantum dot in the photonic crystal waveguide on-chip in a
cryostat at 1.6 K or 4 K (see main text) and routed to the frequency conversion setup via a single mode fiber. Single photons
(blue path) are mixed with a dichroic mirror with light from a tunable continuous wave laser at around 2400 nm (red path), and
both are coupled to the ppLN waveguide via an aspheric lens (AL), after accurate mode matching of both polarization (using
HWP and QWP) and mode profile (using a beam expander and an extra lens). At the output, the converted single photons (at
1550 nm, green path) are collimated by another AL, and all unwanted residual wavelengths are filtered away with a longpass
filter at 1400 nm and a diffraction grating, before the coupling to a single mode fiber. b) Photon counting and lifetime
measurement setup. Single photons (either before or after conversion) are sent to a single-photon detector and counts are
collected by a time tagger unit. For the lifetime measurement, a clock from the excitation laser is used for synchronization.
c) Purity measurement setup. Single photons are directed to a Hanbury Brown-Twiss (HBT) setup composed of a beam
splitter with a single-photon detector at each output, and a time tagger unit records count coincidences between them. d)
Indistinguishability measurement setup. Single photons are directed to a Hong-Ou Mandel (HOM) setup composed of
a Mach-Zehnder interferometer with delay matching the repetition rate of the excitation laser and a HWP to cross-polarize
photons. Two single-photon detectors at the output and a time tagger unit measure coincidences.
FIG. 3. Measured lifetime and purity before (left) and FIG. 4. Measured indistinguishability before (left) and
after conversion (right). a) Lifetime measurements. after conversion (right). a) Coincidence counts. Data,
The lifetime is measured and plot in orange. The instrument measured in a HOM setup, is shown in orange (yellow) for
response function (shown in yellow) is convolved with an ex- the co-polarized (cross-polarized) configuration, and peak val-
ponential decay to precisely fit the single photon lifetime (fit ues are highlighted with blue (purple) points. b) Zoom in
shown in dashed black). b) Purity measurements. Coin- view on the central peaks. Normalized data is shown
cidence counts are measured in a HBT setup: data is shown with yellow points in the cross-polarized scheme (fit shown in
with yellow points while the fit is shown is orange. orange), and with purple points in the co-polarized scheme
(fit shown in blue). Each trace is firstly normalized to a far
away side peak area, and then both are normalized on the
cross-polarization central peak for clarity.
materials for the long time scale behaviour). This gives
(2) (2)
us g930 (0) = (2.0 ± 0.3)% and g1550 (0) = (2.4 ± 0.2)% in
the two wavelength regimes. The two values and error fect splitting ratios of the beam splitters and non-unity
ranges show that the QFC process does not increase the interference visibility (see supplementary materials), we
multi-photon probability, i.e. the C-band single-photon (corr)
extract the corrected visibility [34] V930 = (93.5±1.1)%
source is only limited by the few percent impurity of the (corr)
and V1550 = (94.8 ± 1.6)% before and after conversion,
original QD source.
respectively. Both the raw and corrected visibility data
Finally, we characterize the indistinguishability of the reveal a high degree of indistinguishability of the QD
source, before and after conversion by measuring coinci- source, which is preserved after QFC. We observe a qual-
dence counts in a Hong-Ou Mandel (HOM) setup, shown itatively different shape of the suppressed HOM peak for
in Fig. 1d). Two photons generated by consecutive ex- the two sets of data, which can be attributed to the fact
citation pulses are interfered in an asymmetric Mach- that detector response time at 1550 nm is significantly
Zendher interferometer and a half waveplate is used to faster than at 930 nm, which is evident in the IRF of
cross-polarize the photons to make them distinguishable. the 930 nm and 1550 nm detectors in Fig. 3a) (further
The results are shown in Fig. 4a). On the left, we report analysis in the supplementary materials).
measurements from the QD source at 930 nm (with 10 In conclusion, we have demonstrated frequency conver-
minutes integration time per trace), and on the right sim- sion of indistinguishable single photons emitted in the
ilar measurements after conversion at 1550 nm (1 hour 900-950 nm to the telecommunication C-band around
integration time per trace). In both cases, the raw vis- 1550 nm. We have shown simultaneously a high exter-
ibility is obtained by fitting the data, normalizing each nal efficiency of 40.8% and the low-noise behaviour re-
trace with the area of a peak at a delay of approximately quired to maintain the high purity and indistinguishabil-
500 ns, and then comparing the areas of the central ity characteristic of the QDs used as sources, achieving
peaks in the co- and cross-polarized cases, Ak and A⊥ : g (2) (0) = 2.4% and V corr = 94.8%, respectively. The
V (raw) = (A⊥ − Ak )/A⊥ . The normalized coincidence end-to-end conversion efficiency is currently limited by
counts are shown in Fig. 4b) for both before and after (apart from the optical loss of the setup components)
conversion measurements for ease of comparison. The the coupling of the converted 1550 nm photons to the
(raw)
resulting raw visibilities are V930 = (89.2 ± 0.9)% and output fiber, and could be readily improved by tailor-
(raw)
V1550 = (88.8±1.4)%. Taking into account the non zero ing the light wavefront to achieve better mode match-
(2)
g (0) (assuming it is due to distinguishable photons) ing, for example using spatial light modulators. Future
and the imperfections in the optical setups such as imper- work will address integrating QFC on-chip, using thin-
5
film ppLN or GaAs waveguides [35–37], which are ex- COMPETING INTERESTS
pected to further reduce the required pump power and
allow to scale up the conversion to multiple emitters. The P.L. is founder and minority shareholder in the com-
demonstrated low-noise QFC enables developing schemes pany Sparrow Quantum. The authors declare that there
for long-distance quantum communication and it offers are no other competing interests.
the possibility to compensate for the inhomogeneous
broadening of the QD emission wavelength, as demon-
strated by several works [38, 39] recently achieving up to
(67±2)% two-photon indistinguishability [40]. Moreover, DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT
our schemes could be used in combination with highly-
efficient photonic integrated circuits to implement device- All data needed to evaluate the conclusions in the pa-
independent quantum key distribution protocols, where per are present in the paper and/or the Supplementary
maintaining photon coherence after conversion is crucial Materials. Additional data related to this paper available
to perform Bell-state measurements at a remote herald- from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
ing station [41, 42]. Finally, the QFC demonstrated here
closes the gap between the single-photon source technol-
ogy of InAs QDs in GaAs and the mature silicon-on-
insulator photonic integrated circuit technology [43–45], ∗
Currently at: Key Laboratory of Integrated Opto-
enabling the modular integration of quantum communi-
Electronic Technologies and Devices in Tianjin, School
cation, computing, and simulation. of Precision Instruments and Opto-Electronics Engineer-
ing, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China.
†
Currently at: Department of Physics & Astronomy, Uni-
versity of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA
‡
SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALS midolo@nbi.ku.dk
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