Towards 1% single photon nonlinearity with periodically-poled lithium niobate microring resonators

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a lithium niobate microring resonator with unprecedented second harmonic efficiency and a significant single-photon nonlinearity, paving the way for quantum photonic circuits capable of photon blockade.

Contribution

It introduces a periodically-poled thin film lithium niobate microring resonator achieving near 1% single photon nonlinearity, a substantial improvement over previous devices.

Findings

Achieved 5,000,000%/W second harmonic conversion efficiency

Estimated single photon coupling rate of 1.2 MHz

Approached the dissipation rate, enabling potential photon blockade

Abstract

The absence of the single-photon nonlinearity has been a major roadblock in developing quantum photonic circuits at optical frequencies. In this paper, we demonstrate a periodically-poled thin film lithium niobate microring resonator (PPLNMR) that reaches 5,000,000%/W second harmonic conversion efficiency---almost 20-fold enhancement over the state-of-the-art---by accessing its largest $\chi^{(2)}$ tensor component $d_{33}$ via quasi-phase matching. The corresponding single photon coupling rate $g/2\pi$ is estimated to be 1.2 MHz, which is an important milestone as it approaches the dissipation rate $\kappa/2\pi$ of best available lithium niobate microresonators developed in the community. Using a figure of merit defined as $g/\kappa$, our devices reach a single photon nonlinearity approaching 1%. We show that, by further scaling of the device, it is possible to improve the single photon nonlinearity to a regime where photon-blockade effect can be manifested.