A scalable near-visible integrated photon-pair source for satellite quantum science

TL;DR

This paper presents a scalable, integrated near-visible photon-pair source using silicon nitride microresonators, enabling efficient satellite quantum communication with high purity, brightness, and entanglement quality, suitable for space applications.

Contribution

The authors demonstrate a novel integrated near-visible photon-pair source with engineered dispersion in silicon nitride microresonators, overcoming previous spectral limitations for satellite quantum links.

Findings

Achieved spectral brightness of 4.87×10^7 pairs/s/mW^2/GHz.

Generated high-purity heralded single photons with a rate up to 2.3 MHz.

Observed energy-time entanglement with 98.4% visibility, violating CHSH limit.

Abstract

Quantum state distribution over vast distances is essential for global-scale quantum networks and fundamental test of quantum physics at space scale. While satellite platforms have demonstrated thousand-kilometer entanglement distribution, quantum key distribution and quantum teleportation with ground, future constellations and deep-space missions demand photon sources that are robust, compact, and power-efficient. Integrated photonics offers a scalable solution, yet a critical spectral gap persists. Although telecom-band integrated photon-pair sources are well established, near-visible photons offer distinct advantages for satellite-to-ground links by mitigating diffraction loss and maximizing the collection efficiency of optical telescopes. Scalable integrated sources in this regime have remained elusive due to the fundamental challenge of achieving anomalous dispersion in materials transparent at visible wavelengths. Here we bridge this gap by demonstrating an integrated near-visible photon-pair source based on a wide-bandgap, ultralow-loss, silicon nitride (Si$_3$N$_4$) microresonator. By engineering the dispersion of higher-order waveguide modes, we overcome the intrinsic normal dispersion limit to achieve efficient phase matching. The device exhibits a spectral brightness of 4.87$\times$10$^7$ pairs/s/mW$^2$/GHz and a narrow photon linewidth of 357 MHz. We report high-purity heralded single-photon generation with a heralding rate up to 2.3 MHz and a second-order correlation function as low as 0.0041. Furthermore, we observe energy-time entanglement with 98.4% interference visibility, violating the CHSH limit even at flux exceeding 40.6 million pairs/s. Combined with the proven radiation hardness of Si$_3$N$_4$, this source constitutes a flight-ready hardware foundation for daylight quantum communications and protocols requiring on-orbit multiphoton interference.