Tunable entangled photon-pair generation in a liquid crystal

Sultanov, Vitaliy (author), Kavčič, Aljaž (author), Kokkinakis, Emmanouil (author), Sebastián Ugarteche, Nerea (author), Chekhova, Maria V. (author), Humar, Matjaž (author)

Liquid crystals, with their ability to self-assemble, strong response to an electric field and integrability into complex systems, are key materials in light-beam manipulation. The recently discovered ferroelectric nematic liquid crystals also have considerable second-order optical nonlinearity, making them a potential material for nonlinear optics. Their use as sources of quantum light could considerably extend the boundaries of photonic quantum technologies. However, spontaneous parametric down-conversion, the basic source of entangled photons, heralded single photons and squeezed light, has so far not been observed in liquid crystals—or in any liquids or organic materials. Here we implement spontaneous parametric down-conversion in a ferroelectric nematic liquid crystal and demonstrate electric-field tunable broadband generation of entangled photons, with an efficiency comparable to that of the best nonlinear crystals. The emission rate and polarization state of photon pairs is markedly varied by applying a few volts or twisting the molecular orientation along the sample. A liquid-crystal source enables a special type of quasi-phase matching, which is based on the molecular twist structure and is therefore reconfigurable for the desired spectral and polarization properties of photon pairs. Such sources promise to outperform standard nonlinear optical materials in terms of functionality, brightness and the tunability of the generated quantum state. The concepts developed here can be extended to complex topological structures, macroscopic devices and multi-pixel tunable quantum light sources.

• Language: English
• Keywords: liquid crystals, nonlinear optics, quantum information, quantum oprics
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FMF - Faculty of Mathematics and Physics
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Publication date: 12.06.2024
• Year: 2024
• Number of pages: Str. 294-299
• Numbering: Vol. 631, iss. 8020
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-159767
• UDC: 538.9:535
• ISSN on article: 0028-0836
• DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07543-5
• COBISS.SI-ID: 199216387
• Publication date in RUL: 24.07.2024

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Nature : the international weekly journal of science
• Shortened title: Nature
• Publisher: Macmillan
• ISSN: 0028-0836
• COBISS.SI-ID: 1078026

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: tekoči kristali, nelinearna optika, kvantna informacija, kvantna optika