'Sawfish' Photonic Crystal Cavity for Near-Unity Emitter-to-Fiber Interfacing in Quantum Network Applications

Photon loss is one of the key challenges to overcome in complex photonic quantum applications. Photon collection efficiencies directly impact the amount of resources required for measurement-based quantum computation and communication networks. Promising resources include solid-state quantum light sources. However, efficiently coupling light from a single quantum emitter to a guided mode remains demanding. In this work, photon losses are eliminated by maximizing coupling efficiencies in an emitter-to-fiber interface. A waveguide-integrated 'Sawfish' photonic crystal cavity is developed and finite element (FEM) simulations are employed to demonstrate that such an emitter-to-fiber interface transfers, with 97.4 % efficiency, the zero-phonon line (ZPL) emission of a negatively-charged tin vacancy center in diamond (SnV-) adiabatically to a single-mode fiber. A surrogate model trained by machine learning provides quantitative estimates of sensitivities to fabrication tolerances. The corrugation-based Sawfish design proves robust under state-of-the-art nanofabrication parameters, maintaining an emitter-to-fiber coupling efficiency of 88.6 %. Applying the Sawfish cavity to a recent one-way quantum repeater protocol substantiates its potential in reducing resource requirements in quantum communication. Spin-photon interface efficiencies directly affect the performance of quantum communication networks. However, efficiently coupling light from a single solid-state quantum emitter to a waveguide or fiber remains demanding. In this work, a waveguide-integrated 'Sawfish' photonic crystal cavity is introduced. The cavity transfers the emission of negatively-charged vacancy centers in diamond with near-unity efficiency adiabatically into a single-mode fiber.image

Automated summary

Photon loss is a major challenge in photonic quantum applications. This work introduces a waveguide-integrated 'Sawfish' photonic crystal cavity that efficiently couples light from a quantum emitter to a single-mode fiber, reducing resource requirements in quantum communication. Machine learning is used to estimate sensitivities to fabrication tolerances.