Quantum photonic network on chip

We provide an overview of quantum photonic network on chip. We begin from the discussion of the pros and cons of several material platforms for engineering quantum photonic chips. Then we introduce and analyze the basic building blocks and functional units of quantum photonic integrated circuits. In the main part of this review, we focus on the generation and manipulation of quantum states of light on chip and are particularly interested in some applications of advanced integrated circuits with different functionalities for quantum information processing, including quantum communication, quantum computing, and quantum simulation. We emphasize that developing fully integrated quantum photonic chip which contains sources of quantum light, integrate circuits, modulators, quantum storage, and detectors are promising approaches for future quantum photonic technologies. Recent achievements in the large scale photonic chips for linear optical computing are also included. Finally, we illustrate the challenges toward high performance quantum information processing devices and conclude with promising perspectives in this field.

Dissipative quantum phase transition in a biased Tavis-Cummings model

We study the dissipative quantum phase transition(QPT)in a biased Tavis–Cummings model consisting of an ensemble of two-level systems(TLSs)interacting with a cavity mode,where the TLSs are pumped by a drive field.In our proposal,we use a dissipative TLS ensemble and an active cavity with effective gain.In the weak drive-field limit,the QPT can occur under the combined actions of the loss and gain of the system.Owing to the active cavity,the QPT behavior can be much differentiated even for a finite strength of the drive field on the TLS ensemble.Also,we propose to implement our scheme based on the dissipative nitrogen-vacancy(NV)centers coupled to an active optical cavity made from the gainmedium-doped silica.Furthermore,we show that the QPT can be measured by probing the transmission spectrum of the cavity embedding the ensemble of the NV centers.

Order Parameter of a Nanometre-Scale S-Wave Superconducting Grain in Quantum Tunnelling Process： Frequency Space Analysis

A nano-scale s-wave superconducting grain, coupled to a normal metallic contact through a tunnelling junction, is placed in an external magnetic field. We suppose that effect of this quantum tunnelling on the Fourier transform of the order parameter is in the form of a small additive correction to the BCS order parameter. At the first order approximation in terms of this correction term and by using an instanton method, the related Green functions （in frequency space） are obtained. By establishing a self-consistent configuration an analytic formula for the order parameter is also found. We also show that a departure from superconductivity can be captured by this formula. This change of state is indeed a manifestation of a quantum transition induced by quantum fluctuations. In this sense, this is an advantage of our simple method which, like other more elaborate methods, can detect a quantum transition in the state of the grain.

Degenerate polarization entangled photon source based on a single Ti-diffusion lithium niobate waveguide in a polarization Sagnac interferometer

Combining a Ti-diffusion periodically poled lithium niobate(PPLN)waveguide with a Sagnac interferometer,two opposite directions type-II spontaneous parametric down conversions(SPDC)occur coherently and yield a high brightness,high stability polarization entanglement source.The source produces degenerate photon pairs at 1540.4 nm with a brightness of B=(1.36±0.03)×10^(6) pairs/(s·nm·m W).We perform quantum state tomography to reconstruct the density matrix of the output state and obtain a fidelity of F=0.983±0.001.The high brightness and phase stability of our waveguide source enable a wide range of quantum information experiments operating at a low pump power as well as hold the advantage in mass production which can promote the practical applications of quantum technologies.

Nanoscale strain engineering of graphene and graphene-based devices

Structural distortions in nano-materials can induce dramatic changes in their electronic properties. This situation is well manifested in graphene, a two-dimensional honeycomb structure of carbon atoms with only one atomic layer thickness. In particular, strained graphene can result in both charging effects and pseudo-magnetic fields, so that controlled strain on a perfect graphene lattice can be tailored to yield desirable electronic properties. Here, we describe the theoretical foundation for strain-engineering of the electronic properties of graphene, and then provide experimental evidence for strain-induced pseudo-magnetic fields and charging effects in monolayer graphene. We further demonstrate the feasibility of nano-scale strain engineering for graphene-based devices by means of theoretical simulations and nano-fabrication technology.

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.

Bandwidth-tunable silicon nitride microring resonators

We designed a reconfigurable dual-interferometer coupled silicon nitride microring resonator.By tuning the integrated heater on interferometer's arms,the"critical coupling"bandwidth of resonant mode is continuously adjustable whose quality factor varies from 7.9×10^(4) to 1.9×10^(5) with the extinction ratio keeping higher than 25 dB.Also a variety of coupling spanning from"under-coupling"to"over-coupling"were achieved,showing the ability to tune the quality factor from 6.0×10^(3) to 2.3×10^(5).Our design can provide an adjustable filtering method on silicon nitride photonic chip and contribute to optimize the nonlinear process for quantum photonics and all-optical signal processing.

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.

Effect of thickness variations of lithium niobate on insulator waveguide on the frequency spectrum of spontaneous parametric down-conversion

We study the effect of waveguide thickness variations on the frequency spectrum of spontaneous parametric downconversion in the periodically-poled lithium niobate on insulator(LNOI)waveguide.We analyze several variation models and our simulation results show that thickness variations in several nanometers can induce distinct effects on the central peak of the spectrum,such as narrowing,broadening,and splitting.We also prove that the effects of positive and negative variations can be canceled and thus lead to a variation-robust feature and an ultra-broad bandwidth.Our study may promote the development of on-chip photon sources in the LNOI platform,as well as opens up a way to engineer photon frequency state.

Bright 547-dimensional Hilbert-space entangled resource in 28-pair modes biphoton frequency comb from a reconfigurable silicon microring resonator

High-dimensional entanglement provides valuable resources for quantum technologies,including quantum communication,quantum optical coherence tomography,and quantum computing.Obtaining a high brightness and dimensional entanglement source has significant value.Here we utilize a tunable asymmetric Mach–Zehnder interferometer coupled silicon microring resonator with 100 GHz free spectral range to achieve this goal.With the strategy of the tunable coupler,the dynamical and extensive tuning range of quality factors of the microring can be obtained,and then the biphoton pair generation rate can be optimized.By selecting and characterizing 28 pairs from a more than 30-pair modes biphoton frequency comb,we obtain a Schmidt number of at least 23.4 and on-chip pair generation rate of 19.9 MHz/m W;under a low on-chip pump power,which corresponds to 547 dimensions Hilbert space in frequency freedom.These results will prompt the wide applications of quantum frequency comb and boost the further large density and scalable on-chip quantum information processing.

Quantum entanglement in the Sachdev–Ye–Kitaev model and its generalizations

Entanglement is one of the most important concepts in quantum physics.We review recent progress in understanding the quantum entanglement in many-body systems using large-N solvable models:the Sachdev–Ye–Kitaev(SYK)model and its generalizations.We present the study of entanglement entropy in the original SYK model using three different approaches:the exact diagonalization,the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis,and the pathintegral representation.For coupled SYK models,the entanglement entropy shows linear growth and saturation at the thermal value.The saturation is related to replica wormholes in gravity.Finally,we consider the steady-state entanglement entropy of quantum many-body systems under repeated measurements.The traditional symmetry breaking in the enlarged replica space leads to the measurement-induced entanglement phase transition.

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.

量子隐形传态的新方案

提出一个量子隐形传态的新方案.通过对一对压缩参数相同但相互独立的双模压缩真空态(1-2和3-4量子态系统)中的2-3系统施行粒子数-相位的联合测量,制备出另外两体系统(1-4系统)的纠缠态作为纠缠源,从而实现量子隐形传态.

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].

Robust second-order correlation of twin parametric beams generated by amplified spontaneous parametric down-conversion

We report an observation of the second-order correlation between twin beams generated by amplified spontaneous parametric down-conversion operating above threshold with kilowatt-level peak power, from a periodically poled Li Ta O3 crystal via a single-pass scheme. Photocurrent correlation was measured because of the bright photon streams, with raw visibility of 37.9% or 97.3% after electronic filtering. As expected in our theory, this correlation is robust and insensitive to parametric gain and detection loss, enabling important applications in optical communications, precision measurement, and nonlocal imaging.

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.