Hybrid III-V/Silicon Quantum Photonic Device Generating Broadband Entangled Photon Pairs

The demand for integrated photonic chips combining the generation and manipulation of quantum states of light is steadily increasing, driven by the need for compact and scalable platforms for quantum information technologies. While photonic circuits with diverse functionalities are being developed in different single material platforms, it has become crucial to realize hybrid photonic circuits that harness the advantages of multiple materials while mitigating their respective weaknesses, resulting in enhanced capabilities. Here, we demonstrate a hybrid III-V/silicon quantum photonic device combining the strong second-order nonlinearity and direct band gap of the III-V semiconductor platform with the high maturity and CMOS compatibility of the silicon photonic platform. Our device embeds the spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) of photon pairs into an <a:math xmlns:a="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline" overflow="scroll"><a:mi>Al</a:mi><a:mi>Ga</a:mi><a:mi>As</a:mi></a:math> source and their vertical routing to an adhesively bonded silicon-on-insulator circuitry, within an evanescent coupling scheme managing both polarization states. This enables the on-chip generation of broadband (<d:math xmlns:d="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline" overflow="scroll"><d:mo>&gt;</d:mo><d:mn>40</d:mn></d:math> nm) telecom photons by type-0 and type-2 SPDC from the hybrid device, at room temperature and with internal pair generation rates exceeding <g:math xmlns:g="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline" overflow="scroll"><g:msup><g:mn>10</g:mn><g:mn>5</g:mn></g:msup><g:mspace width="0.2em"/><g:msup><g:mrow><g:mi mathvariant="normal">s</g:mi></g:mrow><g:mrow><g:mo>−</g:mo><g:mn>1</g:mn></g:mrow></g:msup></g:math> for both types, while the pump beam is strongly rejected. Two-photon interference with 92% visibility (and up to 99% upon 5-nm spectral filtering) proves the high energy-time entanglement quality of the produced quantum state, thereby enabling a wide range of quantum information applications on chip, within a hybrid architecture compliant with electrical pumping and merging the assets of two mature and highly complementary platforms in view of out-of-the-lab deployment of quantum technologies. Published by the American Physical Society 2024