Wideband Quantum PICs (QPICs) for Conditioning, Routing and Gate Operations of Highly Non-degenerate Entangled Photons

A reoccurring challenge in photonic quantum information is that many computational platforms (trapped ions, defect centers, neutral atoms, quantum dots) have transitions at visible wavelengths whereas photonic infrastructure largely operates in the telecommunications band. To connect the two, researchers either perform frequency conversion or produce highly non-degenerate entangled/correlated photon pairs that separately interact in their bandwidth.  In this STTR effort, RIT will develop wideband QPICs which can integrate efficiently and robustly with AdvR’s polarization entangled photon pair source.  The wideband QPICs will provide spectral filtering and timing compensation (conditioning), low loss signal routing to photonic gates for on chip quantum processing.  This combination of a highly efficient, highly non-degenerate photon pair source with a low loss, fully functional gate can be designed to provide the necessary connection between atomic species and the robust telecom infrastructure for communications.  Using silicon photonics will solve many struggles researchers have integrating photon pair sources into quantum measurements.  Silicon and SiN waveguides can be made in a foundry service for low cost and enable tight confinement to miniaturize quantum systems enabling implementation outside the lab.