Super spontaneous four-wave mixing in an array of silicon microresonators

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates super spontaneous four-wave mixing in silicon microresonator arrays, showing collective photon pair generation rates exceeding individual contributions, with implications for integrated quantum photonics.

Contribution

It provides the first experimental evidence of super SFWM in integrated silicon photonics, revealing collective effects in nonlinear photon pair generation.

Findings

Cooperative pair generation rate exceeds sum of individual rates

Loss impacts on super SFWM observed and analyzed

Potential for enhanced quantum light sources in integrated photonics

Abstract

Composite optical systems can show compelling collective dynamics. For instance, the cooperative decay of quantum emitters into a common radiation mode can lead to superradiance, where the emission rate of the ensemble is larger than the sum of the rates of the individual emitters. Here, we report experimental evidence of super spontaneous four-wave mixing (super SFWM), an analogous effect for the generation of photon pairs in a parametric nonlinear process on an integrated photonic device. We study this phenomenon in an array of microring resonators on a silicon photonic chip coupled to bus waveguides. We measured a cooperative pair generation rate that always exceeds the incoherent sum of the rates of the individual resonators. We investigate the physical mechanisms underlying this collective behaviour, clarify the impact of loss, and address the aspects of fundamental and technological relevance of our results.