High-fidelity and polarization-insensitive universal photonic processors fabricated by femtosecond laser writing

Abstract

Universal photonic processors (UPPs) are fully programmable photonic integrated circuits that are key components in quantum photonics. With this work, we present a novel platform for the realization of low-loss, low-power, and high-fidelity UPPs based on femtosecond laser writing (FLW) and compatible with a large wavelength spectrum. In fact, we demonstrate different UPPs, tailored for operation at 785 nm and 1550 nm, providing similar high-level performances. Moreover, we show that standard calibration techniques applied to FLW-UPPs result in Haar random polarization-insensitive photonic transformations implemented with average amplitude fidelity as high as 0.9979 at 785 nm (0.9970 at 1550 nm), with the possibility of increasing the fidelity over 0.9990 thanks to novel optimization algorithms. Besides being the first demonstrations of polarization-insensitive UPPs, these devices show the highest level of control and reconfigurability ever reported for a FLW circuit. These qualities will be greatly beneficial to applications in quantum information processing.

On-chip tunable quantum interference in a lithium niobate-on-insulator photonic integrated circuit

“…For applications with several interferometers, crosstalk between laterally adjacent MZIs might become an issue. This can be mitigated either by taking it into account in the calibration [47] or by including thermal isolation trenches [37]. coupled to polarization maintaining fiber, where the slow axis of the fiber was aligned to the polarization axis of the respective photon.…”