Photon pair generation using a silicon photonic hybrid laser

Abstract

We report photon pairs and heralded single photons generated at 1310 nm wavelengths using silicon photonics technology, demonstrating that comparable performance could be achieved when a silicon microring resonator was pumped either by a desktop laser instrument or by an electrically injected, room-temperature hybrid silicon laser. Measurements showed that 130 kilo-coincidence-counts per second pair rates could be generated, with coincidences-to-accidentals ratio approximately 100 at about 0.34 mW optical pump power and anti-bunching upon heralding with second-order intensity correlation g(2)(0) = 0.06 at about 0.9 mW optical pump power. These results suggest that hybrid silicon lasers, which are ultra-compact and wafer-scale manufacturable, could be used in place of packaged, stand-alone lasers for generating photon pairs at data communication wavelengths and enable large-scale, cost-effective manufacturing of integrated sources for quantum communications and computing.