MRI-R2 Consortium: Development of a Photon-Number-Resolving Detector System for Universal Quantum Computing

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This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).This award is for development of a photon-number-resolving detector for universal quantum computing. This is a collaboration between Prof. Olivier Pfster at the University of Virginia, Prof. Aaron Miller at Albion College, and Dr. Sae Woo Nam at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The goal is the development of high performance transition-edge sensor (TES) superconducting photodetectors, recently demonstrated at NIST by Dr. Nam and by Prof. Miller, to be installed at the University of Virginia and used in quantum optics and quantum information experiments. Such detectors possess single-photon sensitivity, multiphoton resolution, and near-unity quantum efficiency, which makes them the ideal tool to explore the quantum nature of light by providing a complete measurement of its particle nature. The main emphasis will be placed on the creation and manipulation of quantum states of light possessing non-Gaussian Wigner quasiprobability distributions. Such states are essential to the implementation of universal quantum computing with continuous variables.The broader impacts of the work are multifaceted. First and foremost is that this is an interdisciplinary effort between cutting-edge detector science and experimental quantum information. This interdisciplinary effort will involve students from Virginia participating in and learning TES technology, design, development, and fabrication, as well as NIST and Albion personnel participating in quantum optics and quantum information experiments at Virginia. Second, given the integration capabilities of the design, it is expected that a number of independent, fiber-coupled TES detectors will be available in the Virginia laboratory and usable remotely by experiments on adjacent tables or in neighboring rooms including novel teaching laboratories in quantum optics. These laboratories would explore the quantum nature of classical light via photon-number-resolved Hanbury Brown and Twiss experiments and generalized Hong-Ou-Mandel interferometry. Also, quantum computing research has stakes in fundamental physics, as well as Defense and National Security.