Progress towards a widely usable integrated silicon photonic photon-pair source

Abstract

Photon-pair generation at telecommunication wavelengths using high-quality silicon microring resonators is an active area of research. Here, we report on significant progress towards the ultimate goal of an integrated silicon microchip for bright generation of photon pairs with multiple stages of tunable optical filtering on the same chip. A high pair generation brightness of 6.5×10 10 pairs/s/mW 2 /nm is achieved. The resonance of the high-Q silicon microring resonator can be monitored using a high dynamic range readout of a photocurrent in an all-silicon p-i-n diode fabricated across the waveguide cross-section, which is used to align the ring resonance to the passbands or stopbands of the filters.