Power-efficient production of photon pairs in a tapered chalcogenide microwire

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a low-power, efficient method for generating photon pairs using tapered chalcogenide microwires, which could advance quantum photonics applications.

Contribution

The study introduces a novel approach utilizing tapered As2Se3 chalcogenide microwires for photon pair production at low pump powers, highlighting their high nonlinearity.

Findings

Achieved high coincidences-to-accidentals ratios at low pump powers

Demonstrated potential for single-photon pumping with these microwires

Showed suitability for quantum information processing applications

Abstract

Using tapered fibers of As2Se3 chalcogenide glass, we produce photon pairs at telecommunication wavelengths with low pump powers. We found maximum coincidences-to-accidentals ratios of $2.13\pm0.07$ for degenerate pumping with 3.2 {\mu}W average power, and $1.33\pm0.03$ for non-degenerate pumping with 1.0 {\mu}W and 1.5 {\mu}W average power of the two pumps. Our results show that the ultrahigh nonlinearity in these microwires could allow single-photon pumping to produce photon pairs, enabling the production of large entangled states, heralding of single photons after lossy transmission, and photonic quantum information processing with nonlinear optics.