Tunable entangled photon-pair generation in a liquid crystal

Liquid crystals, with their ability to self-assemble, strong response to an electric field and integrability into complex systems, are key materials in light-beam manipulation¹. The recently discovered ferroelectric nematic liquid crystals^2,3 also have considerable second-order optical nonlinearity, making them a potential material for nonlinear optics^4,5. Their use as sources of quantum light could considerably extend the boundaries of photonic quantum technologies⁶. However, spontaneous parametric down-conversion, the basic source of entangled photons⁷, heralded single photons⁸ and squeezed light⁹, has so far not been observed in liquid crystals-or in any liquids or organic materials. Here we implement spontaneous parametric down-conversion in a ferroelectric nematic liquid crystal and demonstrate electric-field tunable broadband generation of entangled photons, with an efficiency comparable to that of the best nonlinear crystals. The emission rate and polarization state of photon pairs is markedly varied by applying a few volts or twisting the molecular orientation along the sample. A liquid-crystal source enables a special type of quasi-phase matching¹⁰, which is based on the molecular twist structure and is therefore reconfigurable for the desired spectral and polarization properties of photon pairs. Such sources promise to outperform standard nonlinear optical materials in terms of functionality, brightness and the tunability of the generated quantum state. The concepts developed here can be extended to complex topological structures, macroscopic devices and multi-pixel tunable quantum light sources.