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.

Improving the spectral purity of single photons by a single-interferometer-coupled microring

We experimentally engineer a high-spectral-purity single-photon source using a single-interferometer-coupled silicon microring. By the reconfiguration of the interferometer, different coupling conditions can be obtained, corresponding to different quality factors for the pump and signal/idler. The ratio between the quality factor of the pump and signal/idler ranges from 0.29 to 2.57. By constructing the signal–idler joint spectral intensity, we intuitively demonstrate the spectral correlation of the signal and idler. As the ratio between the quality factor of the pump and signal/idler increases, the spectral correlation of the signal and idler decreases, i.e., the spectral purity of the signal/idler photons increases. Furthermore,time-integrated second-order correlation of the signal photons is measured, giving a value up to 94.95 ± 3.46%. Such high-spectral-purity photons will improve the visibility of quantum interference and facilitate the development of on-chip quantum information processing.

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.

Heralded path-entangled NOON states generation from a reconfigurable photonic chip

Maximal multi-photon entangled states,known as NOON states,play an essential role in quantum metrology.With the number of photons growing,NOON states are becoming increasingly powerful and advantageous for obtaining supersensitive and super-resolved measurements.In this paper,we propose a universal scheme for generating three-and four-photon path-entangled NOON states on a reconfigurable photonic chip via photons subtracted from pairs and detected by heralding counters.Our method is postselection free,enabling phase supersensitive measurements and sensing at the Heisenberg limit.Our NOON-state generator allows for integration of quantum light sources as well as practical and portable precision phase-related measurements.

Boosting the dimensionality of frequency entanglement using a reconfigurable microring resonator

Integrated quantum frequency combs(QFCs)based on microring resonators supplies as an essential resource for expanding the Hilbert-space dimensionality for high-dimensional quantum computing and information processing.In this work,we propose and demonstrate a reconfigurable ring resonator with tunable quality factors to efficiently increase the dimensionality of frequency entanglement,simultaneously,ensuring a high on-chip pair generation rate(PGR)and coincidence-to-accidental ratio(CAR).Our method exploits the asymmetric Mach-Zehnder interferometer instead of the traditional straight waveguide as the coupler of resonators which offer a tunable external coupling coefficient to modulate the quality factor to enlarge the QFCs’bandwidth and thus increase the dimensionality of frequency entanglement.We measured the QFCs’joint spectral intensity of 28 frequency pairs under various quality factors ranging from 16.6×10^(4) to 3.4×10^(4).Meanwhile,the measured Schmidt number increased from 11.01 to 24.77,denoting a huge expansion of the Hilbert-space dimensionality from 121 to a record number of 613 dimensions,which agrees well with our theoretical calculations.In addition,the PGR and CAR-another two key parameters for high-quality QFCs-were all measured under different quality factors to verify that our method can significantly increase the Schmidt number and CAR while maintaining a high PGR.In fact,bright QFCs with a total PGR of 4.3 MHz under a 0.48 mW pump power and a mean CAR of 1578 were simultaneously obtained at the highest Schmidt number.This method is widely applicable to other material-based ring resonators and can act as a general solution for high-dimensional QFCs.

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].

Ultra-stable pressure is realized for Chinese single pressure refractive index gas thermometry in the range 30–90 kPa

The unit of thermodynamic temperature,the kelvin,is one of the seven base units of International System of Units.The international temperature scaIe of 1990 (ITS-90)is a practical temperature scale used worldwide to approximate thermodynamic tempera- ture T by ITS-90 temperature T90.The primary thermometry calibration facilities based on thermodynamic temperature standards are the foundation of ITS 90 and temperature measurement in a country.China has developed primary thermometry in the temperature region down to the neon triple point 24.5561 K estimated by ITS-90,but it has not yet set up any primary thermometry at lower temperatures.

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.

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.