Observation of soliton pulse compression in photonic crystal waveguides

We demonstrate soliton-effect pulse compression in mm-long photonic crystal waveguides resulting from strong anomalous dispersion and self-phase modulation. Compression from 3ps to 580fs, at low pulse energies(~10pJ), is measured via autocorrelation

Multi-photon absorption limits to heralded single photon sources

This work was supported in part by the Centre of Excellence (CUDOS, project number CE110001018), Laureate Fellowship (FL120100029) and Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DE120102069, DE130101148, and DE120100226) programs of the Australian Research Council (ARC), EPSRC UK Silicon Photonics (Grant reference EP/F001428/1), EU FP7 GOSPEL project (grant no. 219299), and EU FP7 COPERNICUS (grant no. 249012).Single photons are of paramount importance to future quantum technologies, including quantum communication and computation. Nonlinear photonic devices using parametric processes offer a straightforward route to generating photons, however additional nonlinear processes may come into play and interfere with these sources. Here we analyse spontaneous four-wave mixing (SFWM) sources in the presence of multi-photon processes. We conduct experiments in silicon and gallium indium phosphide photonic crystal waveguides which display inherently different nonlinear absorption processes, namely two-photon (TPA) and three-photon absorption (ThPA), respectively. We develop a novel model capturing these diverse effects which is in excellent quantitative agreement with measurements of brightness, coincidence-to-accidental ratio (CAR) and second-order correlation function g((2))(0), showing that TPA imposes an intrinsic limit on heralded single photon sources. We build on these observations to devise a new metric, the quantum utility (QMU), enabling further optimisation of single photon sources.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Media 1: Slow-light dispersion engineering of photonic crystal waveguides using selective microfluidic infiltration

Originally published in Optics Letters on 15 October 2012 (ol-37-20-4215

Cross-absorption as a limit to heralded silicon photon pair sources

In recent years integrated waveguide devices have emerged as an attractive platform for scalable quantum tech- nologies. In contrast to earlier free-space investigations, one must consider additional effects induced by the media. In amorphous materials, spontaneous Raman scattered photons act as a noise source. In crystalline materials two-photon absorption (TPA) and free carrier absorption (FCA) are present at large intensities. While initial observations noted TPA affected experiments in integrated semiconductor devices, at present the nuanced roles of these processes in the quantum regime is unclear. Here, using single photons generated via spontaneous four-wave mixing (SFWM) in silicon, we experimentally demonstrate that cross-TPA (XTPA) between a classical pump beam and generated single photons imposes an intrinsic limit on heralded single photon generation, even in the single pair regime. Our newly developed model is in excellent agreement with experimental results

All-optical XOR logic gate for 40Gb/s DPSK signals via FWM in a silicon nanowire

We demonstrate an all-optical XOR logic function for 40Gb/s differential phase-shift keyed (DPSK) data signals in the C-band, based on four-wave mixing (FWM) in a silicon nanowire. Error-free operation with a system penalty of 3c3.0dB and 3c4.3dB at 10-9 BER is achieved. \ua9 2011 Optical Society of America.Peer reviewed: YesNRC publication: Ye

Nonlinear photonics:Quantum state generation and manipulation

Reliable sources of photons are imperative to the development of photonic quantum technologies. I will review the use of ultra-compact slow light photonic crystal structures to create heralded single photon sources using nonlinear processes