Photon-pair generation via down-conversion in III-V semiconductor microrings: Modal dispersion and quasi-phase-matching

We explore how III-V semiconductor microring resonators can efficiently generate photon pairs and squeezed vacuum states via spontaneous parametric down-conversion by utilizing their built-in quasi-phase-matching and modal dispersion. We present an analytic expression for the biphoton wave function of photon pairs generated by weak pump pulses and characterize the squeezed states that result under stronger pumping conditions. Our model includes loss and captures the statistics of the scattered photons. A detailed sample calculation shows that for low pump power conversion efficiencies of 10-5, corresponding to a rate of 39 MHz for a pump power of 1μW, are attainable for rudimentary structures such as a simple microring coupled to a waveguide, in both the continuous-wave and pulsed-excitation regimes. Our results suggest that high levels of squeezing and pump depletion are attainable, possibly leading to the deterministic generation of non-Gaussian states.