Integrated Silicon Photonics for High-Speed Quantum Key Distribution

Abstract

General rightsThis document is made available in accordance with publisher policies. Please cite only the published version using the reference above. Integrated photonics offers great potential for quantum communication devices in terms of complexity, robustness, and scalability. Silicon photonics in particular is a leading platform for quantum photonic technologies, with further benefits of miniaturization, cost-effective device manufacture, and compatibility with CMOS microelectronics. However, effective techniques for high-speed modulation of quantum states in standard silicon photonic platforms have been limited. Here we overcome this limitation and demonstrate high-speed low-error quantum key distribution modulation with silicon photonic devices combining slow thermo-optic DC biases and fast (10 GHz bandwidth) carrier-depletion modulation. The ability to scale up these integrated circuits and incorporate microelectronics opens the way to new and advanced integrated quantum communication technologies and larger adoption of quantumsecured communications.

Integrated SU-8 ring resonator for rapid humidity sensing

“…Currently integrated photonics is a large research area that comprises various fields, such as quantum technologies 1 , medicine 2 , information and communications technologies 3 , and sensing 4 . The advantages of integrated photonics are the compact size of the photonic chips 5 , the potential to be mass manufactured, high-speed data transmission 6 , immunity to electromagnetic interference 7 , robustness, and scalability 8 . Sensors with these qualities could be useful for rapid detection of gases.…”