Lomonte Emma, Wolff Martin A, Beutel Fabian, Ferrari Simone, Schuck Carsten, Pernice Wolfram H P, Lenzini Francesco
Institute of Physics, University of Muenster, 48149, Muenster, Germany.
CeNTech-Center for Nanotechnology, 48149, Muenster, Germany.
Nat Commun. 2021 Nov 25;12(1):6847. doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-27205-8.
Lithium-Niobate-On-Insulator (LNOI) is emerging as a promising platform for integrated quantum photonic technologies because of its high second-order nonlinearity and compact waveguide footprint. Importantly, LNOI allows for creating electro-optically reconfigurable circuits, which can be efficiently operated at cryogenic temperature. Their integration with superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPDs) paves the way for realizing scalable photonic devices for active manipulation and detection of quantum states of light. Here we demonstrate integration of these two key components in a low loss (0.2 dB/cm) LNOI waveguide network. As an experimental showcase of our technology, we demonstrate the combined operation of an electrically tunable Mach-Zehnder interferometer and two waveguide-integrated SNSPDs at its outputs. We show static reconfigurability of our system with a bias-drift-free operation over a time of 12 hours, as well as high-speed modulation at a frequency up to 1 GHz. Our results provide blueprints for implementing complex quantum photonic devices on the LNOI platform.
绝缘体上铌酸锂（LNOI）因其高二次非线性和紧凑的波导占用面积，正成为集成量子光子技术的一个有前途的平台。重要的是，LNOI允许创建电光可重构电路，该电路可在低温下高效运行。它们与超导纳米线单光子探测器（SNSPD）的集成，为实现用于主动操纵和检测光量子态的可扩展光子器件铺平了道路。在此，我们展示了在低损耗（0.2 dB/cm）的LNOI波导网络中集成这两个关键组件。作为我们技术的一个实验展示，我们展示了一个电可调马赫曾德尔干涉仪和两个位于其输出端的波导集成SNSPD的联合操作。我们展示了我们系统的静态可重构性，在12小时的时间内无偏置漂移运行，以及高达1 GHz频率的高速调制。我们的结果为在LNOI平台上实现复杂的量子光子器件提供了蓝图。
