On-chip single-photon subtraction by individual silicon vacancy centers in a laser-written diamond waveguide

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates on-chip single-photon subtraction using silicon vacancy centers in laser-written diamond waveguides, enabling scalable quantum photonics with integrated light field engineering.

Contribution

It introduces a novel integrated platform combining silicon vacancy centers with laser-written diamond waveguides for single-photon manipulation.

Findings

Achieved a cooperativity of 0.153 with silicon vacancy centers.

Demonstrated single-photon subtraction from a quasi-coherent field.

Realized super-Poissonian light statistics indicating non-classical light manipulation.

Abstract

Modifying light fields at single-photon level is a key challenge for upcoming quantum technologies and can be realized in a scalable manner through integrated quantum photonics. Laser-written diamond photonics offers three-dimensional fabrication capabilities and large mode-field diameters matched to fiber optic technology, though limiting the cooperativity at the single-emitter level. To realize large cooperativities, we combine excitation of single shallow-implanted silicon vacancy centers via large numerical aperture optics with detection assisted by laser-written type-II waveguides. We demonstrate single-emitter extinction measurements with a cooperativity of 0.153 and a beta factor of 13% yielding 15.3% as lower bound for the quantum efficiency of a single emitter. The transmission of resonant photons reveals single-photon subtraction from a quasi-coherent field resulting in super-Poissonian light statistics. Our architecture enables single quantum level light field engineering in an integrated design which can be fabricated in three dimensions and with a natural connectivity to optical fiber arrays.