Integration of Quantum Emitters with Lithium Niobate Photonics

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the deterministic integration of InAs quantum dot single-photon emitters with lithium niobate photonic circuits, enabling scalable, reconfigurable quantum photonic devices for quantum information processing.

Contribution

It introduces a pick-and-place transfer method for coupling quantum emitters to lithium niobate photonics with high precision and efficiency.

Findings

Successful transfer of quantum dots onto lithium niobate waveguides.

High-efficiency transfer of single photons into integrated waveguides.

Verification of single-photon emission via photon correlation measurements.

Abstract

The integration of quantum emitters with integrated photonics enables complex quantum photonic circuits that are necessary for photonic implementation of quantum simulators, computers, and networks. Thin-film lithium niobate is an ideal material substrate for quantum photonics because it can tightly confine light in small waveguides and has a strong electro-optic effect that can switch and modulate single photons at low power and high speed. However, lithium niobite lacks efficient single-photon emitters, which are essential for scalable quantum photonic circuits. We demonstrate deterministic coupling of single-photon emitters with a lithium niobate photonic chip. The emitters are composed of InAs quantum dots embedded in an InP nanobeam, which we transfer to a lithium niobate waveguide with nanoscale accuracy using a pick-and place approach. An adiabatic taper transfers single photons emitted into the nanobeam to the lithium niobate waveguide with high efficiency. We verify the single photon nature of the emission using photon correlation measurements performed with an on-chip beamsplitter. Our results demonstrate an important step toward fast, reconfigurable quantum photonic circuits for quantum information processing.