Single-photon detection and cryogenic reconfigurability in lithium niobate nanophotonic circuits.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 34824247.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-021-27205-8 and PMC identifier 8617300.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Lithium-Niobate-On-Insulator (LNOI) is emerging as a promising platform for integrated quantum photonic technologies because of its high second-order nonlinearity and compact waveguide footprint. Importantly, LNOI allows for creating electro-optically reconfigurable circuits, which can be efficiently operated at cryogenic temperature. Their integration with superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPDs) paves the way for realizing scalable photonic devices for active manipulation and detection of quantum states of light. Here we demonstrate integration of these two key components in a low loss (0.2 dB/cm) LNOI waveguide network. As an experimental showcase of our technology, we demonstrate the combined operation of an electrically tunable Mach-Zehnder interferometer and two waveguide-integrated SNSPDs at its outputs. We show static reconfigurability of our system with a bias-drift-free operation over a time of 12 hours, as well as high-speed modulation at a frequency up to 1 GHz. Our results provide blueprints for implementing complex quantum photonic devices on the LNOI platform.