Photorefractive effect in LiNbO 3 -based integrated-optical circuits for continuous variable experiments

Effet photoréfractif dans les circuits optiques intégrés à base de LiNbO3 pour les expériences en variables continues

François Mondain (1) , Floriane Brunel (1) , Xin Hua , Elie Gouzien , Alessandro Zavatta , Tommaso Lunghi (1) , Florent Doutre (1) , Marc de Micheli (1) , Sébastien Tanzilli (1) , Virginia d'Auria (1)

1 INPHYNI - Institut de Physique de Nice

We investigate the impact of photorefractive effect on lithium niobate integrated quantum pho-tonic circuits dedicated to continuous variable on-chip experiments. The circuit main building blocks, i.e. cavities, directional couplers, and periodically poled nonlinear waveguides are studied. This work demonstrates that, even when the effect of photorefractivity is weaker than spatial mode hopping, they might compromise the success of on-chip quantum photonics experiments. We describe in detail the characterization methods leading to the identification of this possible issue. We also study to which extent device heating represents a viable solution to counter this effect. We focus on photorefractive effect induced by light at 775 nm, in the context of the generation of non-classical light at 1550 nm telecom wavelength.

Mots clés: Quantum communication; Continuous variables; Nonlinear integrated photonics; Lithium niobate

Domaines: Optique [physics.optics]

François Mondain, Floriane Brunel, Xin Hua, Elie Gouzien, Alessandro Zavatta, et al.. Photorefractive effect in LiNbO 3 -based integrated-optical circuits for continuous variable experiments. Optics Express, 2020. ⟨hal-02908852⟩