Time-bin entanglement at telecom wavelengths from a hybrid photonic integrated circuit

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a compact, stable hybrid photonic circuit capable of generating high-quality, telecom-wavelength time-bin entangled photon pairs suitable for fiber-based quantum communication.

Contribution

It introduces a fiber-pigtailed hybrid photonic circuit with integrated nonlinear waveguides and polymer interposer, achieving high entanglement fidelity and stability for practical quantum networks.

Findings

Achieved 96% concurrence and fidelity to Bell state.

Demonstrated low pump suppression and high polarization extinction.

Produced telecom-wavelength time-bin entangled photon pairs.

Abstract

Mass-deployable implementations for quantum communication require compact, reliable, and low-cost hardware solutions for photon generation, control and analysis. We present a fiber-pigtailed hybrid photonic circuit comprising nonlinear waveguides for photon-pair generation and a polymer interposer reaching 68dB of pump suppression and photon separation with >25dB polarization extinction ratio. The optical stability of the hybrid assembly enhances the quality of the entanglement, and the efficient background suppression and photon routing further reduce accidental coincidences. We thus achieve a 96(-8,+3)% concurrence and a 96(-5,+2)% fidelity to a Bell state. The generated telecom-wavelength, time-bin entangled photon pairs are ideally suited for distributing Bell pairs over fiber networks with low dispersion.