Photon pair generation in a silicon micro-ring resonator with reverse bias enhancement

Area of Science:

• Quantum optics and photonics
• Integrated photonics
• Semiconductor device physics

Background:

• High-count-rate, low-noise photon sources are essential for quantum photonic technologies.
• Bulk crystal-based spontaneous parametric down-conversion is a standard, but lacks scalability.
• Waveguide-based sources are needed for integrated, chip-based quantum technologies.

Purpose of the Study:

• To demonstrate efficient photon pair generation in a silicon micro-ring resonator.
• To investigate methods for overcoming performance degradations in such sources.
• To enable scalable, on-chip quantum photonic systems.

Main Methods:

• Photon pair generation via spontaneous four-wave mixing in a silicon micro-ring resonator.
• Utilized reverse-biased p-i-n structures to mitigate free-carrier effects.
• Characterized generation rate and coincidence-to-accidental (CAR) ratio.

Main Results:

• Achieved a maximum CAR of 602 ± 37 at 827 kHz generation rate.
• Reported a maximum photon pair generation rate of 123 MHz ± 11 kHz (with CAR of 37).
• Reverse-biased p-i-n structures improved generation rate by up to 2x with negligible CAR impact.

Conclusions:

• Silicon micro-ring resonators are viable for high-performance, on-chip photon pair generation.
• Addressing free-carrier effects is key to optimizing waveguide-based quantum sources.
• This work advances scalable chip-based quantum photonic technologies.