Silicon nitride waveguides with intrinsic single-photon emitters for integrated quantum photonics

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the integration of intrinsic single-photon emitters in silicon nitride waveguides, enabling scalable quantum photonic circuits with confirmed single-photon emission coupling and promising practical applications.

Contribution

We developed a novel method to create SiN waveguides with intrinsic quantum emitters and demonstrated their effective coupling to waveguide modes.

Findings

Coupling of single-photon emission into waveguides confirmed by autocorrelation measurements.

Achieved a photon rate of 10^4 counts per second from integrated emitters.

First demonstration of intrinsic SiN emitters coupled to monolithic waveguides.

Abstract

The recent discovery of room temperature intrinsic single-photon emitters in silicon nitride (SiN) provides the unique opportunity for seamless monolithic integration of quantum light sources with the well-established SiN photonic platform. In this work, we develop a novel approach to realize planar waveguides made of low-autofluorescing SiN with intrinsic quantum emitters and demonstrate the single-photon emission coupling into the waveguide mode. The observed emission coupling from these emitters is found to be in line with numerical simulations. The coupling of the single-photon emission to a waveguide mode is confirmed by second-order autocorrelation measurements of light outcoupled off the photonic chip by grating couplers. Fitting the second-order autocorrelation histogram yields $g^{(2)}(0)=0.35\pm0.12$ without spectral filtering or background correction with an outcoupled photon rate of $10^4$ counts per second. This demonstrates the first successful coupling of photons from intrinsic single-photon emitters in SiN to monolithically integrated waveguides made of the same material. The results of our work pave the way toward the realization of scalable, technology-ready quantum photonic integrated circuitry efficiently interfaced with solid-state quantum emitters.