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Bright solid-state sources for single photons with orbital angular momentum

Nature Nanotechnology volume 16, pages 302–307 (2021)Cite this article

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Abstract

Photons that have a helical phase front, that is, twisted photons, can carry a discrete, in principle, unlimited, but quantized amount of orbital angular momentum (OAM). Hence, twisted single photons constitute a high-dimensional quantum system with information-processing abilities beyond those of two-level single-photon qubits. To date, the generation of single photons carrying OAM has relied on a non-linear process in bulk crystals, for example, spontaneous parametric down-conversion, which limits both the efficiency and the scalability of the source. Here, we present a bright solid-state source of single photons in an OAM superposition state with a single-photon purity of g(2)(0) = 0.115(1) and a collection efficiency of 23(4)%. The mode purity of the single-photon OAM states is further examined via projection measurements. Future developments of integrated quantum photonic devices with pure OAM states as an additional degree of freedom may enable high-dimensional quantum information processing.

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Fig. 1: Microring resonators embedded with QDs for the generation of single photons carrying quantum superposition states of OAM.
Fig. 2: Characteristics of the microring cavity modes in the superposition states of OAMs with different topological charges (∣l∣ = 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8).
Fig. 3: Purcell-enhanced single photons carrying OAM.
Fig. 4: Near-field and far-field distributions of single photons carrying the quantum superposition state of OAM.
Fig. 5: The purity of single-photon OAM states.

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Data availability

The datasets generated and/or analysed during the current study are available at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.13285514.v2.

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Acknowledgements

J.L. thanks Y. F. Xiao, C. H. Dong, Z. Y. Zhou and X. Cai for helpful discussions. This work is supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2016YFA0301300 and 2018YFA0306100), the Key-Area Research and Development Program of Guangdong Province (2018B030329001), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (91750207, 11874437 and 62035017), the Guangzhou Science and Technology project (201805010004), the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong (2018B030311027) and the National Supercomputer Center in Guangzhou.

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  1. These authors contributed equally: Bo Chen, Yuming Wei.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Materials and Technologies, School of Physics, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China

    Bo Chen, Yuming Wei, Tianming Zhao, Shunfa Liu, Rongbin Su, Beimeng Yao, Jin Liu & Xuehua Wang

  2. State Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Materials and Technologies, School of Electronics and Information Technology, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China

    Ying Yu

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Contributions

X.W. presented the idea. J.L. and X.W. conceived the project. J.L. directed the experiment. B.C. and S.L. contributed to the structure simulations. Y.Y. grew the quantum dot wafers. B.C., R.S., J.L. and B.Y. fabricated the devices. B.C., J.L. and Y.W. characterized the devices. B.C., J.L., T.Z., X.W. and Y.W. analysed the data. J.L. wrote the manuscript with inputs from all authors. J.L. and X.W. supervised the project.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Jin Liu or Xuehua Wang.

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Supplementary Information

Supplementary Figs. 1–14, discussion and refs. 1–11.

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Chen, B., Wei, Y., Zhao, T. et al. Bright solid-state sources for single photons with orbital angular momentum. Nat. Nanotechnol. 16, 302–307 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-020-00827-7

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