Wideband Silicon Nanopotonics for Classical and Quantum Applications

Recent advances in nanophotonic technology have led to major progress and new promise in wideband nonlinear optics. In this talk, I will discuss our recent efforts in exploring nonlinear nanophotonics across widely separated spectral bands from visible (~650 nm) to telecom (~1550 nm), for both classical and quantum applications. In the classical regime, efficient spectral translation of light is useful for many integrated photonics applications, including spectroscopy, sensing, and metrology, where coherent visible light needs to be generated efficiently on-chip. I will introduce our recent work1 on how to translate telecom light into the visible band by stimulated four-wave mixing, a third-order nonlinear optical process, inside a high quality factor silicon nitride microring. The translation efficiency is comparable to the best current second-order nonlinear result and is a record-high value for nanophotonic spectral translation. In the quantum regime, narrow-linewidth, wide-band quantum entanglement is particularly useful in connecting different species of trapped atoms/ions, defect centers and quantum dots to the telecommunications bands for future quantum communication systems. I will discuss our work2 in generating visible-telecom photon pairs with record-high brightness and efficiency. Time-energy entanglement is generated and then distributed over a 20 km fiber. I will also introduce our exciting new progress in both applications areas, including visible-telecom optical parametric oscillation3 and wideband quantum frequency combs.