Abstract
Sources of quantum light, in particular correlated photon pairs that are indistinguishable for all degrees of freedom, are the fundamental resource for photonic quantum computation and simulation. Although such sources have been recently realized using integrated photonics, they offer limited ability to tune the spectral and temporal correlations between generated photons because they rely on a single component, such as a ring resonator. Here, we demonstrate a tunable source of indistinguishable photon pairs using dual-pump spontaneous four-wave mixing in a topological system comprising a two-dimensional array of resonators. We exploit the linear dispersion of the topological edge states to tune the spectral bandwidth (by about 3.5×), and thereby, to tune quantum interference between generated photons by tuning the two pump frequencies. We demonstrate energy−time entanglement and, using numerical simulations, confirm the topological robustness of our source. Our results could lead to tunable, frequency-multiplexed quantum light sources for photonic quantum technologies.
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Data availability
The data that support the findings of this study are available on reasonable request. Correspondence should be addressed to S.M. (mittals@umd.edu).
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Acknowledgements
This research was supported by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research AFOSR-MURI grant FA9550-16-1-0323, Office of Naval Research ONR-MURI grant N00014-20-1-2325, Army Research Laboratory grant W911NF1920181, and NSF grant PHY1820938. We thank Q. Quraishi for providing the nanowire detectors.
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S.M. and V.V.O. contributed equally. S.M. conceived and designed the experiment, and performed numerical simulations. V.V.O. and S.M. performed the measurements. E.A.G. contributed to source characterization. M.H. supervised the project. All authors contributed to analysing the data and writing the manuscript.
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A US provisional patent application (no. 63/028,468) has been filed based on the results reported in this manuscript.
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Supplementary Figures S1–S11, Supplementary discussion in sections S1–S11
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Mittal, S., Orre, V.V., Goldschmidt, E.A. et al. Tunable quantum interference using a topological source of indistinguishable photon pairs. Nat. Photon. 15, 542–548 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-021-00810-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-021-00810-1
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