Towards On-Chip Integrated Optical Quantum Frequency Combs

Abstract

Recent development in quantum photonics allowed to start the process of bringing photonic-quantum-based systems out of the lab into real world applications. As an example, devices for the exchange of a cryptographic key secured by the law of quantum mechanics are currently commercially available. In order to further boost this process, the next step is to migrate the results achieved by means of bulky and expensive setups to miniaturized and affordable devices. Integrated quantum photonics is exactly addressing this issue. In this paper we briefly review the most recent advancements in the generation of quantum states of light (at the core of quantum cryptography and computing) on chip. In particular, we focus on optical microcavities, as they can offer a solution to the issue of low efficiency (low number of photons generated) typical of the materials mostly used in integrated platforms. In addition, we show that specifically designed microcavities can also offer further advantages, such as compatibility with existing telecom standard (thus allowing to exploit the existing fiber network) and quantum memories (necessary in turns to extend the communication distance), as well as longitudinal multimode character. This last property (i.e. the increased dimensionality necessary for describing the quantum state of a photon) is achieved thanks to the generating multiple photon pairs on a frequency comb corresponding to the microcavity resonances. Further achievements include the possibility to fully exploit the polarization degree of freedom also for integrated devices. These results pave the way to the generation of integrated quantum frequency combs, that in turn may find application as quantum computing platform.