Ultra-broadband spectral and polarisation entanglement using dispersion-engineered nanophotonic waveguides

TL;DR

This paper introduces dispersion-engineered nanophotonic waveguides for generating ultra-broadband spectral and polarisation entanglement, promising significant advancements in integrated quantum photonics and multi-channel quantum networks.

Contribution

It presents a simplified quantum framework and demonstrates the potential of aluminum gallium arsenide and lithium niobate waveguides for high-dimensional entanglement and polarisation-entangled photon pairs.

Findings

Schmidt number as high as ~10^8 indicating high-dimensional entanglement

Wavelength coverage from 940 to 2730 nm for spectral entanglement

Polarisation entanglement with concurrence > 0.93 across 1175-1750 nm

Abstract

In this paper, we propose exploiting dispersion-engineered nanophotonic waveguides in generating unprecedented ultra-broadband spectral and polarisation entanglement using spontaneous four-wave mixing parametric processes. We developed a simplified theoretical quantum framework to investigate and analyse these interactions under pulse source excitations. Using aluminum gallium arsenide and thin-film lithium niobate waveguides, we anticipate to obtain photon pairs with high-dimensional frequency entanglement, characterised by Schmidt numbers as large as ~10$^8$, and covering the wavelength range 940--2730 nm (equivalent to a 210 THz bandwidth). Additionally, we show that Al$_{0.3}$Ga$_{0.7}$As waveguides with hybrid cladding can enable the generation of polarisation-entangled photon pairs with concurrence exceeding 0.93 across wavelengths from 1175 nm to 1750 nm, spanning almost across all the telecommunication bands with only approximately 27 nm window inevitable-degradation around the pump wavelength. We envisage that these introduced integrated on-chip sources will significantly advance quantum photonic technologies, enabling breakthroughs in multi-channel quantum networking and scalable quantum information systems.