Slow-light Enhanced Correlated Photon-Pair Generation in Silicon

We report the generation of correlated photon pairs in the telecom C-band, at room temperature, from a dispersion-engineered silicon photonic crystal waveguide. The spontaneous four-wave mixing process producing the photon pairs is enhanced by slow-light propagation enabling an active device length of less than 100 μm. With a coincidence to accidental ratio of 12.8, at a pair generation rate of 0.006 per pulse, this ultra-compact photon pair source is immediately applicable towards scalable quantum information processing realized on-chip.