Entangled Photon Pair Generation Using Silicon Wire Waveguides

Entangled photon pair generation is an important technology for realizing quantum information systems. Among various entangled photon pair sources, a source based on spontaneous four-wave mixing (SFWM) in a silicon wire waveguide (SWW) is now drawing attention. Thanks to the very large third-order nonlinearity in an SWW, we can realize highly efficient SFWM in a short ( ~ 1 cm) waveguide, which will possibly lead to an integrated entanglement source on a silicon chip. In this paper, we review recent progress on SWW-based entanglement sources. This study reviews the basic theory of SFWM, and then describes correlated and entangled photon generation experiments using SWWs and applications to quantum information experiments.