Femtosecond-laser Written Integrated Optical Devices for Quantum Circuits

Abstract: Integrated quantum photonic circuits have gained increasing interest in the field of quantum information, due to their compactness, the intrinsic stability and the potential scalability. Photons are the promising candidate for quantum information processing. Among all the optical platforms, femtosecond-laser waveguide writing technique has shown the extraordinary versatility in producing different components of a complete quantum system. In the last decade, femtosecond-laser writing has greatly expanded its applications in quantum technology. The aim of this thesis is to study and optimize the fundamental optical devices for integrated quantum circuits using femtosecond-laser waveguide writing technique. We investigate relevant theory of optical waveguides, the methods to fabricate and characterize laser-written waveguides in glass. In this work, we demonstrate the femtosecond-laser writing of integrated devices including Mach-Zehnder interferometer and path-encoded CNOT quantum gate. These devices can further serve as building blocks to produce complete integrated quantum system.