photons tagged posts

Acoustic waveguide channels phonons into the optomechanical cavity, enabling the group to manipulate the motion of the suspended nanoscale beam directly. Credit: K. Balram/K. Srinivasan/NIST

A system based on this design could move and store information in next-generation computers. While Moore’s Law, the idea that the number of transistors on an integrated circuit will double every 2 years, has proven remarkably resilient, engineers will soon begin to encounter fundamental limits. As transistors shrink, heat and other factors will begin to have magnified effects in circuits. So researchers are considering designs in which electronic components interface with other physical systems that carry information such as light and sound...

3 sources of single photons: represented by a red dot at the center of the cavity, the semiconductor quantum dots (of nanometric size) is inserted in the center of the cavity, which consists of a 3 µm pillar connected to a circular frame by guides that are 1.3 µm wide. By applying electrical voltage to the cavity, the wavelength of the emitted photons can be tuned and the charge noise totally eliminated. Credit: © Niccolo Somaschi – Laboratoire de photonique et de nanostructures (CNRS)

A new ultra-bright source of single photons – 15X brighter than commonly used sources and emitting photons that are 99.5% indistinguishable from one another – has been developed by researchers from the CNRS, Université Paris Diderot, and Université Paris-Sud...

This is a graphic that describes how the new interface acts as a quantum switch. Credit: S. Kelley/JQI

Single photons can quickly modify individual electrons embedded in a semiconductor chip and vice versa, an advance that could be a significant step toward establishing quantum networks in the future. Such networks would transmit qubits from place to place and would offer unbreakable security for the transmitted information. But researchers must first develop ways for qubits that are better at storing information to interact with photons that are better at transporting it, a task achieved in conventional networks by electro-optic modulators that use electronic signals to modulate properties of light.

A/Prof Edo Waks et al have struck upon an interface between photons and single electrons t...

This is the silicon based quantum optics lab-on-a-chip. Credit: University of Bristol

The microprocessor inside a computer is a single multipurpose chip that has revolutionized people’s life, allowing them to use one machine to surf the web, check emails and keep track of finances. Now, researchers have pulled off the same feat for light in the quantum world by developing an optical chip that can process photons in an infinite number of ways.

It’s a major step forward in creating a quantum computer to solve problems such as designing new drugs, superfast database searches, and performing otherwise intractable mathematics that aren’t possible for super computers...