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中红外量子光源在气体传感和红外热成像等领域具有广阔的应用前景.然而，目前常用的中红外量子纠缠光源主要依赖块状周期极化铌酸锂（periodically poled lithium niobate，PPLN）晶体，其亮度和集成度均存在不足.本文提出了一种基于铌酸锂薄膜波导的理论方案，利用1556.9 nm泵浦产生中心波长为3113.8 nm的纠缠光子对.通过合理的波导结构设计与周期极化设计，实现了II型相位匹配与群速度匹配，使得横电（transverse electric，TE）偏振泵浦入射时能够下转换产生TE偏振与横磁（transverse magnetic，TM）偏振的光子对.进一步地，结合域排列算法对PPLN波导的极化方向进行定制化设计，可实现精确的相位匹配，从而获得纯度高达0.999的量子光源，亮度可以达到6.18×106 cps/mW，相比块状PPLN晶体光源亮度提升三个数量级.本研究有望为中红外波段实现高亮度、高纯度的片上量子光源提供解决方案.Mid-infrared quantum light sources hold broad application prospects in fields such as gas sensing and infrared thermal imaging. However, currently used mid-infrared quantum entanglement light sources primarily rely on bulk periodically poled lithium niobate (PPLN) crystals, which suffer from limitations in both brightness and integration. This paper proposes a theoretical scheme based on lithium niobate thin films utilizing a 1556.9 nm pump to generate entangled photon pairs with a central wavelength of 3113.8 nm. Through optimized waveguide structure and periodic polarization design, Type-II phase matching and group velocity matching are achieved. This enables transverse electric (TE)-polarized pump input to downconvert to generate photon pairs with TE and transverse magnetic (TM) polarization. Furthermore, by combining a domain arrangement algorithm for customized design of the PPLN waveguide’s polarization direction, precise phase matching is achieved, yielding a quantum light source with a purity as high as 0.999 and a brightness reaching 6.18 × 106 cps/mW, representing a three-order-of-magnitude enhancement over bulk PPLN crystal sources. This work offers a promising solution for realizing high-brightness, high-purity on-chip quantum light sources in the mid-infrared band.
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Keywords:
- Lithium niobate (LN) waveguide /
- poling period design /
- mid infrared (MIR) band /
- quantum light source
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