The growing requirement for photon pairs with specific spectral correlations in quantum optics experiments has created a demand for fast, high resolution and accurate source characterization. A promising tool for such characterization uses the classi
cal stimulated process, in which an additional seed laser stimulates photon generation yielding much higher count rates, as recently demonstrated for a $chi^{(2)}$ integrated source in A.~Eckstein emph{et al.}, Laser Photon. Rev. textbf{8}, L76 (2014). In this work we extend these results to $chi^{(3)}$ sources, demonstrating spectral correlation measurements via stimulated four-wave mixing for the first time in a integrated optical waveguide, namely a silicon nanowire. We directly confirm the speed-up due to higher count rates and demonstrate that additional resolution can be gained when compared to traditional coincidence measurements. As pump pulse duration can influence the degree of spectral entanglement, all of our measurements are taken for two different pump pulse widths. This allows us to confirm that the classical stimulated process correctly captures the degree of spectral entanglement regardless of pump pulse duration, and cements its place as an essential characterization method for the development of future quantum integrated devices.
The non-deterministic nature of photon sources is a key limitation for single photon quantum processors. Spatial multiplexing overcomes this by enhancing the heralded single photon yield without enhancing the output noise. Here the intrinsic statisti
cal limit of an individual source is surpassed by spatially multiplexing two monolithic silicon correlated photon pair sources, demonstrating a 62.4% increase in the heralded single photon output without an increase in unwanted multi-pair generation. We further demonstrate the scalability of this scheme by multiplexing photons generated in two waveguides pumped via an integrated coupler with a 63.1% increase in the heralded photon rate. This demonstration paves the way for a scalable architecture for multiplexing many photon sources in a compact integrated platform and achieving efficient two photon interference, required at the core of optical quantum computing and quantum communication protocols.
We report the characterization of correlated photon pairs generated in dispersion-engineered silicon slow-light photonic crystal waveguides pumped by picosecond pulses. We found that taking advantage of the 15 nm flat-band slow-light window (vg ~ c/3
0) the bandwidth for correlated photon-pair generation in 96 and 196 mum long waveguides was at least 11.2 nm; while a 396 mum long waveguide reduced the bandwidth to 8 nm (only half of the slow-light bandwidth due to the increased impact of phase matching in a longer waveguide). The key metrics for a photon-pair source: coincidence to accidental ratio (CAR) and pair brightness were measured to be a maximum 33 at a pair generation rate of 0.004 pair per pulse in a 196 mum long waveguide. Within the measurement errors the maximum CAR achieved in 96, 196 and 396 mum long waveguides is constant. The noise analysis shows that detector dark counts, leaked pump light, linear and nonlinear losses, multiple pair generation and detector jitter are the limiting factors to the CAR performance of the sources.
