Quantum Frequency Conversion of Single Photons from a Nitrogen-Vacancy Center in Diamond to Telecommunication Wavelengths

Anaïs Dréau (1, 2, 3) , Anna Tcheborateva (2, 4) , Aboubakr El Mahdaoui (2, 3) , Cristian Bonato (2, 3) , Ronald Hanson (2, 3)

1 L2C - Laboratoire Charles Coulomb
2 TU Delft - Delft University of Technology
3 KI-NANO - Kavli Institute of Nanosciences [Delft]
4 TNO - The Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research

We report on the conversion to telecom wavelength of single photons emitted by a nitrogen-vacancy (NV) defect in diamond. By means of difference frequency generation, we convert spin-selective photons at 637 nm, associated with the coherent NV zero-phonon-line, to the target wavelength of 1588 nm in the L-telecom band. The successful conversion is evidenced by time-resolved detection revealing a telecom photon lifetime identical to that of the original 637 nm photon. Furthermore, we show by second-order correlation measurements that the single-photon statistics are preserved. The overall efficiency of this one-step conversion reaches 17\% in our current setup, along with a signal-to-noise ratio of $\approx$7 despite the low probability $(< 10^{-3})$ of an incident 637 nm photon. This result shows the potential for efficient telecom photon - NV center interfaces and marks an important step towards future long-range entanglement-based quantum networks.

Mots clés: quantum frequency conversion; nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond; non-linear optics; quantum communication networks

Domaines: Physique Quantique [quant-ph]; Optique [physics.optics]

Anaïs Dréau, Anna Tcheborateva, Aboubakr El Mahdaoui, Cristian Bonato, Ronald Hanson. Quantum Frequency Conversion of Single Photons from a Nitrogen-Vacancy Center in Diamond to Telecommunication Wavelengths. Physical Review Applied, 2018, 9 (6), pp.064031. ⟨10.1103/PhysRevApplied.9.064031⟩. ⟨hal-02003644⟩