Four-wave mixing in a birefringent semiconductor waveguide for correlated photon generation

ORAL

Abstract

The next generation of optical devices for everything from communications to metrology will depend on a fast and practical source of entangled photon pairs. Current methods of entanglement, whether in bulk nonlinear crystals or microstructure optical fibers, pose significant challenges to integration into larger optical systems. In order to meet the demands for speed and practicality, we investigate third-order nonlinearity in a semiconductor waveguide as a source of correlated and ultimately entangled photon pairs. The source is potentially useful for free-space and fiber-optic quantum key distribution as well as a host of other applications such as correlated photon metrology and two-photon interferometry. Analysis of the effectiveness of birefringent phase matching will also provide some measure of the anisotropy of the third-order nonlinear response in III-V compound semiconductors, a significant unknown in nonlinear optics. We show the feasibility of using phase-matched four-wave mixing in a birefringent AlGaAs waveguide to generate correlated photon pairs at wavelengths compatible with silicon detectors.

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Authors

  • Daniel Rogers

    Joint Quantum Institute, NIST and University of Maryland, Gaithersburg, MD

  • Julius Goldhar

    Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, University of Maryland, College Park, MD

  • Christopher Richardson

    Laboratory for Physical Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, MD

  • Alessandro Restelli

    Joint Quantum Institute, NIST and University of Maryland, Gaithersburg, MD

  • Joshua Bienfang

    Joint Quantum Institute, NIST and University of Maryland, Gaithersburg, MD

  • Charles Clark

    National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, Maryland, NIST, Gaithersburg, National Institute of Standards and Technology, NIST, NIST, Gaithersburg, MD, Joint Quantum Institute, NIST and University of Maryland, Gaithersburg, MD