Entangled Photon Pair Source Demonstrator Using the Quantum Instrumentation Control Kit System

Abstract

We report the first demonstration of using the Quantum Instrumentation and Control Kit (QICK) system on RFSoC-FPGA technology to drive the electro-optic intensity modulator that generate time-bin entangled photon pairs and to detect the photon signals. With the QICK system, we achieve high levels of performance metrics including coincidence-to-accidental ratio exceeding 150, and entanglement visibility exceeding 95%, consistent with performance metrics achieved using conventional waveform generators. We also demonstrate simultaneous detector readout using the digitization functional of QICK, achieving internal system synchronization time resolution of 3.2 ps. The work reported in this paper represents an explicit demonstration of the feasibility for replacing commercial waveform generators and time taggers with RFSoC-FPGA technology in the operation of a quantum network, representing a cost reduction of more than an order of magnitude.