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Fully Integrated Silicon Photonic Erbium-Doped Nanodiode for Few Photon Emission at Telecom Wavelengths
Recent advancements in quantum key distribution (QKD) protocols opened the chance to exploit nonlaser sources for their implementation. A possible solution might consist in erbium-doped light emitting diodes (LEDs), which are able to produce photons in the third communication window, with a waveleng...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2023
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10055106/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36984223 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ma16062344 |
Sumario: | Recent advancements in quantum key distribution (QKD) protocols opened the chance to exploit nonlaser sources for their implementation. A possible solution might consist in erbium-doped light emitting diodes (LEDs), which are able to produce photons in the third communication window, with a wavelength around 1550 nm. Here, we present silicon LEDs based on the electroluminescence of Er:O complexes in Si. Such sources are fabricated with a fully-compatible CMOS process on a 220 nm-thick silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafer, the common standard in silicon photonics. The implantation depth is tuned to match the center of the silicon layer. The erbium and oxygen co-doping ratio is tuned to optimize the electroluminescence signal. We fabricate a batch of Er:O diodes with surface areas ranging from 1 µm × 1 µm to 50 µm × 50 µm emitting 1550 nm photons at room temperature. We demonstrate emission rates around 5 × 10 [Formula: see text] photons/s for a 1 µm × 1 µm device at room temperature using superconducting nanowire detectors cooled at 0.8 K. The demonstration of Er:O diodes integrated in the 220 nm SOI platform paves the way towards the creation of integrated silicon photon sources suitable for arbitrary-statistic-tolerant QKD protocols. |
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