Characterize and optimize the four-wave mixing in dual-interferometer coupled silicon microrings

By designing and fabricating a series of dual-interferometer coupled silicon microrings, the coupling condition of the pump, signal, and idler beams can be engineered independently and then we carried out both the continuous-wave and pulse pumped four-wave mixing experiments to verify the dependence of conversion efficiency on the coupling conditions of the four interacting beams, respectively. Under the continuous-wave pump, the four-wave mixing efficiency gets maximized when both the pump and signal/idler beams are closely operated at the critical coupling point, while for the pulse pump case, the efficiency can be enhanced greatly when the pump and converted idler beams are all overcoupled. These experiment results agree well with our theoretical calculations. Our design provides a platform for explicitly characterizing the four-wave mixing under different pumping conditions, and offers a method to optimize the four-wave mixing, which will facilitate the development of on-chip all-optical signal processing with a higher efficiency or reduced pump power.

Near 100%spectral-purity photons from reconfigurable micro-rings

We propose an on-chip reconfigurable micro-ring to engineer the spectral-purity of photons.The micro-ring resonator is designed to be coupled by one or two asymmetric Mach-Zehnder interferometers and the coupling coefficients hence the quality-factors of the pump and the converted photons can be dynamically changed by the interferometer’s internal phase-shifter.We calculate the joint-spectrum function and obtain the spectral-purity of photons and Schmidt number under different phases.We show that it is a dynamical method to adjust the spectral-purity and can optimize the spectralpurity of photons up to near 100%.The condition for high-spectral-purity photons is ensured by the micro-ring itself,so it overcomes the trade-off between spectral purity and brightness in the traditional post-filtering method.This scheme is robust to fabrication variations and can be successfully applied in different fabrication labs and different materials.Such high-spectral-purity photons will be beneficial for quantum information processing like Boson sampling and other quantum algorithms.

Bright photon-pair source based on a silicon dual-Mach-Zehnder microring

Single photons and photon pairs are typically generated by spontaneous parametric down conversion or quantum dots;however,spontaneous four-wave mixing(SFWM)in silicon microring resonators[1]is also an appealing source of entangled photons,offering a strong cavity-enhanced nonlinear interactions while maintaining features,such as compact,simple to fabricate,and allowing for thermal tuning.However,silicon ring-resonators usually suffer from a trade-off between providing a high pair generation rate(PGR)and high extraction efficiency.To achieve high PGR,devices are generally operated with the signal and idler photons in the undercoupling regime and pump photons at the critical coupling point,while high extraction rates require the converted photons to be overcoupled.Therefore,the optimal conditions for achieving maximal output photon pair flux are critical coupling for the pump photons and overcoupling for the converted photons[2,3].

Experimental demonstration of quantum transport enhancement using time-reversal symmetry breaking on a silicon photonic chip

The continuous-time quantum walk is a basic model for studying quantum transport and developing quantum-enhanced algorithms. Recent studies show that by introducing a phase into the standard continuous-time quantum walk model, the time-reversal symmetry can be broken without changing the Hermitian property of the Hamiltonian. The time-reversal symmetry breaking quantum walk shows advantages in quantum transport, such as perfect state transfer, directional control, transport speedup, and quantum transport efficiency enhancement. In this work, we implement the time-reversal symmetry breaking quantum walks on a reconfigurable silicon photonic chip and demonstrate the enhancement introduced by breaking time-reversal symmetry. Perfect state transfer on a three-site ring, a quantum switch implemented on a six-site graph, and transport speedup using a linear chain of triangles are demonstrated with high fidelity. Time-reversal asymmetry has also been used in a simplified light-harvesting model,implying the potential of time-reversal symmetry breaking in photosynthesis investigations.

Silicon photonic devices for scalable quantum information applications

With high integration density and excellent optical properties, silicon photonics is becoming a promising platform for complete integration and large-scale optical quantum information processing. Scalable quantum information applications need photon generation and detection to be integrated on the same chip, and we have seen that various devices on the silicon photonic chip have been developed for this goal. This paper reviews the relevant research results and state-of-the-art technologies on the silicon photonic chip for scalable quantum applications. Despite the shortcomings, the properties of some components have already met the requirements for further expansion. Furthermore, we point out the challenges ahead and future research directions for on-chip scalable quantum information applications.

Steering paradox for Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen argument and its extended inequality

The Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen(EPR)paradox is one of the milestones in quantum foundations,arising from the lack of a local realistic description of quantum mechanics.The EPR paradox has stimulated an important concept of“quantum nonlocality,”which manifests itself in three types:quantum entanglement,quantum steering,and Bell’s nonlocality.Although Bell’s nonlocality is more often used to show“quantum nonlocality,”the original EPR paradox is essentially a steering paradox.In this work,we formulate the original EPR steering paradox into a contradiction equality,thus making it amenable to experimental verification.We perform an experimental test of the steering paradox in a two-qubit scenario.Furthermore,by starting from the steering paradox,we generate a generalized linear steering inequality and transform this inequality into a mathematically equivalent form,which is friendlier for experimental implementation,i.e.,one may measure the observables only in the x,y,or z axis of the Bloch sphere,rather than other arbitrary directions.We also perform experiments to demonstrate this scheme.Within the experimental errors,the experimental results coincide with theoretical predictions.Our results deepen the understanding of quantum foundations and provide an efficient way to detect the steerability of quantum states.

On-chip multiphoton Greenberger-Horne Zeilinger state based on integrated frequency combs

One of the most important multipartite entangled states,Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger state(GHZ),serves as a fundamental resource for quantum foundat ion test,quantum communication and quantum computation.To increase the number of entangled particles,significant experimental efforts should been invested due to the complexity of optical setup and the difficulty in maintaining the coherence condition for high-fidelity GHZ state.Here,we propose an ultra-integrated scalable on-chip GHZ state generation scheme based on frequency combs.By designing several microrings pumped by different lasers,multiple partially overlapped quantum frequency combs are generated to supply as the basis for on-chip polarization-encoded GHZ state with each qubit occupying a certain spectral mode.Both even and odd numbers of GHZ states can be engineered with constant small number of integrated components and easily scaled up on the same chip by only adjusting one of the pumnp wavelengths.In addition,we give the on-chip design of projection measurement for characterizing GHZ states and show the reconfigurability of the state.Our proposal is rather simple and feasible within the existing fabrication technologies and we believe it will boost the development of multiphoton technologies.