Non-classical photon correlation in a two-dimensional photonic lattice

Quantum interference and quantum correlation, as two main features of quantum optics, play an essential role in quantum information applications, such as multi-particle quantum walk and boson sampling. While many experimental demonstrations have been done in one-dimensional waveguide arrays, it remains unexplored in higher dimensions due to tight requirement of manipulating and detecting photons in large-scale. Here, we experimentally observe non-classical correlation of two identical photons in a fully coupled two-dimensional structure, i.e. photonic lattice manufactured by three-dimensional femtosecond laser writing. Photon interference consists of 36 Hong-Ou-Mandel interference and 9 bunching. The overlap between measured and simulated distribution is up to 0.890 +/- 0.001. Clear photon correlation is observed in the two-dimensional photonic lattice. Combining with controllably engineered disorder, our results open new perspectives towards large-scale implementation of quantum simulation on integrated photonic chips. (c) 2016 Optical Society of America