MRI: Development of single photon generation & characterization unit

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0420888StroudThe objective of this research is to develop instrumentation supporting and enhancing research efforts in three University of Rochester departments in the field of quantum optics, quantum information, nanotechnology, and microscopy. The instrumentation will allow the production, detection, and characterization of individual photons interacting with matter. It will consist of three modules: a single-photon-on-demand source, high-speed single-photon detectors with 10% efficiency at optical communications wavelengths, and a high-speed photon statistics analyzer that can operate with 8 ps time resolution. These state-of-the-art facilities will support research in the Institute of Optics, the departments of Physics and Astronomy, and Electrical and Computer Engineering, and the Center for Quantum Information. The PIs will collaborate in this project with BBN Technologies, which is building the world's first absolutely secure quantum key distribution network. The intellectual merit of this proposal is that it provides essential instrumentation supporting research in some of the most promising new fields of technology: quantum information processing, quantum communications, and nanoscience. All of these involve the controlled interaction of the smallest units of light with the smallest units of matter: single photons interacting with single molecules. The facilities developed in this project will allow work at the University of Rochester to progress in all of these fields. The broader impact toward which this research is aimed is the development of quantum computers exponentially more powerful than any classical computer, the development of communication systems secure from any known method of eavesdropping, and miniaturization of medical and diagnostic instrumentation to the nanometer scale.