Photon Pair Generation in Silicon Micro-Ring Resonator with Reverse Bias Enhancement

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates high-rate, low-noise photon pair generation in silicon micro-ring resonators enhanced by reverse bias, advancing scalable chip-based quantum photonic sources.

Contribution

It introduces a reverse bias technique to improve photon pair generation rates in silicon micro-ring resonators without compromising noise performance.

Findings

Achieved a maximum CAR of 602 with low noise.

Generated photon pairs at a rate of 123 MHz.

Reverse bias doubled the pair generation rate.

Abstract

Photon sources are fundamental components for any quantum photonic technology. The ability to generate high count-rate and low-noise correlated photon pairs via spontaneous parametric down-conversion using bulk crystals has been the cornerstone of modern quantum optics. However, future practical quantum technologies will require a scalable integration approach, and waveguide-based photon sources with high-count rate and low-noise characteristics will be an essential part of chip-based quantum technologies. Here, we demonstrate photon pair generation through spontaneous four-wave mixing in a silicon micro-ring resonator, reporting a maximum coincidence-to-accidental (CAR) ratio of 602 (+-) 37, and a maximum photon pair generation rate of 123 MHz (+-) 11 KHz. To overcome free-carrier related performance degradations we have investigated reverse biased p-i-n structures, demonstrating an improvement in the pair generation rate by a factor of up to 2, with negligible impact on CAR.