Spectrally-Pure Integrated Telecom-Band Photon Sources in Silicon

We demonstrate theoretically the direct (filter-free) generation of spectrally uncorrelated photon pairs, and consequently high-purity heralded single photons at telecommunication wavelengths, in SOI (silicon-on-insulator) nanowaveguides via spontaneous four-wave mixing (SFWM). The inherent strong waveguide dispersion in such high-index contrast structures is employed for discrete-band phase-matching in order to suppress the pair spectral correlations, and to produce photons in the fundamental spatial mode for easy in-out coupling to single-mode optical fibers. Additionally, by optimizing the source parameters like waveguide length, dispersion and pump bandwidth, the group-velocity of generated photons is also engineered to further eliminate spectral correlations. Extensive numerical mode simulations for various waveguide widths are used to design intrinsically pure photon sources via joint spectral amplitude (JSA) engineering. Purity <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$>$</tex-math></inline-formula>95% is shown to be achievable in a silica-clad SOI waveguide with a cross-section 220 × 600 nm<inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$^{2}$</tex-math></inline-formula> for typical values of length and pump bandwidth. The wavelength of these heralded single photons can be tuned in the range of 1266–1363 nm (<inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\sim$</tex-math></inline-formula> O-band) by varying the pump wavelength. Considering the high accuracy provided by silicon nanofabrication techniques, the feasibility of generating single photons across the wavelength range 1333–1425 nm (E-band) and 1437–1510 nm (S-band) for slightly different waveguide widths (625 nm & 650 nm) is also demonstrated. These filter-free integrated photon sources could be important for large-scale linear optical quantum computation (LOQC) and long-distance fiber-optic quantum key distribution (QKD) networks.