Tunable quantum emitters on large-scale foundry silicon photonics

Nature Communications volume  15, Article number: 5781 (2024 ) Cite this article

Controlling large-scale many-body quantum systems at the level of single photons and single atomic systems is a central goal in quantum information science and technology. Intensive research and development has propelled foundry-based silicon-on-insulator photonic integrated circuits to a leading platform for large-scale optical control with individual mode programmability. However, integrating atomic quantum systems with single-emitter tunability remains an open challenge. Here, we overcome this barrier through the hybrid integration of multiple InAs/InP microchiplets containing high-brightness infrared semiconductor quantum dot single photon emitters into advanced silicon-on-insulator photonic integrated circuits fabricated in a 300 mm foundry process. With this platform, we achieve single-photon emission via resonance fluorescence and scalable emission wavelength tunability. The combined control of photonic and quantum systems opens the door to programmable quantum information processors manufactured in leading semiconductor foundries.

Coupling sources of quantum light to optical systems is a key requirement for several quantum photonic technologies ranging from quantum computations1 to networking2. Among single photon emitters (SPEs), III–V semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) stand out for near-unity internal quantum efficiency, purity, and indistinguishability3,4,5,6,7,8,9, making them key building blocks in technologies requiring on-demand entangled photon pair emission10,11,12, photon–photon interactions13,14,15, or photonic cluster state generation16,17,18,19. Recent advances in materials science and electron-nuclear spin control have also renewed interest in storing quantum information within these structures. Specifically, methods for reducing coupling between the QD electron spin with the nuclear spin bath of the embedding III–V material can push spin coherence times from tens of nanoseconds20 to beyond 0.1 ms21,22,23.

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