Frequency upconversion of single photons for on-chip quantum information processing.

Optical treatment of quantum information relies heavily on single photon detectors. Tremendous progress has been made in the past decade to integrate such detectors to photonic chips and to efficiently detect single photons at wavelengths suitable for fiber telecommunications. The state-of-the-art superconducting detectors unfortunately still require a prohibitive cryogenic cooling. Here we propose to develop single photon detectors based on frequency conversion and silicon avalanche photodiodes that can fit on a unique photonic chip. This promises single photon detectors competing with the state-of-the-art detectors in term of specifications while being free of cryogenic cooling and being potentially orders of magnitude cheaper. Moreover, such detector will also offer new possibilities for building quantum information processing circuits requiring feedback upon the detection of single photons.