Researchers from Caltech have developed an integrated nanophotonics platform using lithium niobate to generate and measure squeezed states on the same optical chip
In nanophotonics, it is difficult to generate, manipulate, and measure such a quantum state with the performance required for a wide range of scalable quantum information systems. The most basic quantum state of light is the squeezed vacuum, it exhibits noise in one of the quadratures less than the standard quantum noise limit. The generation and manipulation of such states depend on the core quantum-enhanced technologies, but the drawback is these systems need bulk optical components for their preparation. Hence, researchers from Caltech have developed a lithium niobate-based nanophotonic platform that can generate and measure quantum states of light on the same optical chip
“The quality of the quantum states we have achieved surpasses the
requirements for quantum information processing, which used to be the territory of bulky experimental setups,” says Alireza Marandi. He is an assistant professor of electrical engineering and applied physics at Caltech. “Our work marks an important step in generating and measuring quantum states of light in an integrated photonic circuit.”
Lithium niobite has a wide range of applications in optics. One side of the chip produces squeezed states of light while they are measured on the other side. A squeezed state of light means light has been made less “noisy” on the quantum level. Squeezed states of light have recently been used to increase the sensitivity of LIGO, the observatory that uses laser beams to detect gravitational waves. If you are going to process data with light-based quantum devices, that same less-noisy state of light is important.
“Optics has been among the promising routes for the realization of quantum computers because of several inherent advantages in scalability and ultrafast logical operations at room temperature,” says Rajveer Nehra, a postdoctoral scholar and one of the lead authors of the paper. “However, one of the main challenges for scalability has been generating and measuring quantum states with sufficient qualities in nanophotonics. Our work addresses that challenge.”
This research could be used in practical applications such as communications, sensing, and quantum computing in future
Click here for the Published Research Paper
