High-Speed Tunable Microcavities Coupled to Rare-Earth Quantum Emitters

Abstract: Electro-optical control of on-chip photonic devices is an essential tool for efficient integrated photonics. Lithium niobate on insulator (LNOI) is an emerging platform for on-chip photonics due to its large electro-optic coefficient and high nonlinearity [1]. Integrating quantum emitters into LNOI would extend their versatile use in classic photonics to quantum computing and communication [2, 3]. Here, we incorporate single rare-earth ions (REI) quantum emitters in electro-optical tunable lithium niobite (LN) thin films and demonstrate control of LN microcavities coupled to REI over a frequency range of 160 GHz with 5 \mus switching speed. Dynamical control of the cavities enables the modulation of the Purcell enhancement of the REIs with short time constants. Using the Purcell enhancement, we show evidence of detecting single Yb3+ ions in LN cavities. Coupling quantum emitters in fast tunable photonic devices is an efficient method to shape the waveform of the emitter [4]. It also offers a platform to encode quantum information in the integration of a spectral-temporal-spatial domain to achieve high levels of channel multiplexing, as well as an approach to generate deterministic single-photon sources [5, 6].