All optical operation of a superconducting photonic interface

Published

February 2, 2023

Author(s)

Frederik Thiele, Thomas Hummel, Adam McCaughan, Julian Brockmeier, Maximilian Protte, Victor Quiring, Sebastian Lengeling, Christof Eigner, Christine Silberhorn, Tim Bartley

Abstract

Advanced electro-optic processing combines electrical control with optical modulation and detection. For quan-tum photonic applications these processes need to be carried out at the single photon level with high efficiencyand low decoherence. Integrated quantum photonics has made great strides achieving single photon manipulationby combining key components on integrated chips which are operated by external driving electronics. Moreover,some of these key components require cryogenic conditions to operate. Nevertheless, electrical interconnects be-tween driving electronics and the electro-optic components can introduce parasitic effects, especially when bridginga cryogenic to room temperature difference. Here we show an all-optical interface which simultaneously deliversthe operation power to, and extracts the measurement signal from, an advanced photonic circuit, namely, biasand readout of a Superconducting Nanowire Single Photon Detector (SNSPD) on a single stage in a 1K cryostat.While previous experiments have separately shown optical biasing and readout of an SNSPD, we combine both ap-proaches in a single unit. Moreover, we supply all power for the single photon detector, output signal conditioning,and electro-optic readout using optical interconnects alone; thereby fully decoupling the cryogenic circuitry fromthe external environment. This removes the need to heatsink electrical connections, and potentially offers low-loss,high-bandwidth signal processing. Furthermore, this method opens the possibility to operate electrically decoupledphotonic circuits in various extreme environments. In particular, this facilitates combining photonic and cryogenictechnologies such as optical control and readout of superconducting circuits, and feedforward for photonic quantumcomputing

Citation

ArXiv

Pub Weblink

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2302.12123

Pub Type

Websites

Citation

Thiele, F. , Hummel, T. , McCaughan, A. , Brockmeier, J. , Protte, M. , Quiring, V. , Lengeling, S. , Eigner, C. , Silberhorn, C. and Bartley, T. (2023), All optical operation of a superconducting photonic interface, ArXiv, [online], https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2302.12123 (Accessed December 2, 2024)