Toward 1% single-photon anharmonicity with periodically poled lithium niobate microring resonators

Journal Article · 22 November 2020 · Optica

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1364/OPTICA.403931 · OSTI ID:1734421

Lu, Juanjuan ; Li, Ming; Zou, Chang-Ling; Al Sayem, Ayed; Tang, Hong X.

The absence of the single-photon nonlinearity has been a major roadblock in developing quantum photonic circuits at optical frequencies. In this paper, we demonstrate a periodically poled thin film lithium niobate microring resonator (PPLNMR) that reaches 5,000,000%/W second-harmonic conversion efficiency—almost 20-fold enhancement over the state-of-the-art—by accessing its largest ${\mathrm{\chi \; <\#comment/>}}^{\left(2\right)}$ tensor component $d_{33}$ via quasi-phase matching. The corresponding single-photon coupling rate $g/2\mathrm{\pi \; <\#comment/>}$ is estimated to be 1.2 MHz, which is an important milestone as it approaches the dissipation rate $\mathrm{\kappa \; <\#comment/>}/2\mathrm{\pi \; <\#comment/>}$ of best-available lithium niobate microresonators developed in the community. Using a figure of merit defined as $g/\mathrm{\kappa \; <\#comment/>}$ , our device reaches a single-photon nonlinear anharmonicity approaching 1%. We show that, by further scaling of the device, it is possible to improve the single-photon anharmonicity to a regime where photon blockade effect can be manifested.

• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• Grant/Contract Number: SC0019406
• OSTI ID: 1734421
• Journal Information: Optica, Journal Name: Optica Journal Issue: 12 Vol. 7; ISSN 2334-2536
• Publisher: Optical Society of AmericaCopyright Statement
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English