High-brightness broadband quantum frequency combs from silicon microrings

Quantum frequency combs (QFCs) are essential to quantum photonic systems, enabling high dimensional entanglement in both temporal and frequency domains. Silicon photonics offers a promising platform for scalable and monolithic quantum photonic integrated circuits. However, its performance in QFC generation has been hindered by nonlinear losses and restricted phase-matching bandwidth. To overcome these challenges, we introduce a novel design strategy that combines high-order spatial mode engineering with an optimized free-carrier loss suppression structure in a silicon micro-ring resonator. This approach enables a broadband QFC spanning 150 nm, along with a high single pair photon brightness of 6.43 × 109 Hz/mW2/GHz and photon efficiency of 19.9 GHz/mW2 with the collection of 11 frequency bins. The generated QFCs produce heralded single photons with low heralded second-order correlation gh20=0.0024 and energy-time entangled photon pairs with high visibility of 98.19%. Consistent performance across wafer-scale multiple dies confirms the robustness and manufacturability of the designed device. This work establishes a scalable and high-yield pathway toward monolithic quantum photonic integrated circuits.