Abstract
The integration of a single photon source based on a solid-state emitter with a photonic structure remains challenging and specifically when it comes to be compatible with optical fibres. It is important to do so for quantum technologies where single photon sources constitute building blocks for many technologies. In this work, we demonstrate the integration of a single photon source, made of a colloidal semiconductor nanocrystal, with a photonic structure made of a glass waveguide obtained by the ion-exchange technique, which is a fibre-compatible platform used in telecom photonics. Using surface functionalisation and a secondary waveguide of titanium dioxide, we manage to couple single photons from the nanoemitter to the optical waveguide. We observe the single photon character is preserved and demonstrates a 1.2 Purcell factor. A coupling efficiency over 25% is expected thanks to the titanium dioxide secondary waveguiding layer, compared to around 2% obtained for simply positioning the nanocrystal on top of the waveguide alone. The optical waveguide is then pigtailed to an optical fibre to demonstrate a first proof of principle of an integrated single photon source at room temperature with a fibre-compatible platform made of glass with a coupling efficiency increase of 2.8.
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The datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are not publicly available as they are part of ongoing and future studies but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the Graduate School (École Universitaire de Recherche) “NANO-PHOT”, contract ANR-18-EURE-0013, they acknowledge the use of the nano’mat platform from the CNRS Renatech network and funding from the FEDER, the Grand Est Region and the Aube Department. This work received support from French National Agency for Research-ANR of the OQuLuS project under the France 2030 initiative, contract ANR-23-PETQ-0013. The authors thank CNRS-Innovation and the SATT SAYENS for funding A.B. via the projects InteQ and InteQ2.
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A.B. contributed to the fabrication and characterisation work and contributed significantly to the writing of the article, M.H.M. contributed to the characterisation and simulation work, N.R. contributed to the simulation work, A.H. contributed to the fabrication work, P.R. and C.V. contributed to the synthesis work, R.D. contributed to the data acquistion of the work, A.K. contributed to the discussions, S.B. contributed to the discussions, C.C. designed and supervised the work and contributed significantly to the writing of the article as well as the discussions. All authors reviewed the article.
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Broussier, A., Muhammad, M.H., Rahbany, N. et al. Integration of a single photon source with a fibre-compatible photonic waveguide. npj Quantum Inf (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41534-026-01209-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41534-026-01209-y
