High Quantum Efficiency Detectors

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Quantum technologies are a core asset in the UK industrial strategy. They will secure the digital world, see where current cameras cannot, and underpin new drugs, thanks to quantum computers solving currently intractable calculations. In collaboration with the Universities and Research Centres, UK high-tech industries are working on translating them from scientific concepts to available technologies, products, and capabilities. To support this challenge, more than £1Billion has been committed in both Government and Industry funding. Photonics is one of the sectors leading the development and deployment of quantum technologies.Light can carry quantum-secured communications, measure faint signal such as gravitational waves, and solve quantum algorithms. Photonics-based quantum technologies are either required to measure single photons one at a time (single-photon detectors) or to record continuous quantum light signals (proportional detectors) with minimal losses to retain the signatures that make them different from classical light. Here we address this second approach to quantum optical technologies. Today, applications based on such measurement schemes are limited, and detectors are home-built by researchers, often at significant cost in time and monetary. With this project, we join the expertise and capabilities of Bay Photonics (optical packaging and optoelectronics), RedWave Labs (electronics), the experience and resources of the Centre for Process Innovation (photonic applications) and of research teams at the Universities of Strathclyde and Glasgow (quantum sources, low-noise electronics, quantum metrology) to design, build and test a prototype of a quantum sensor able to address this gap in the market and supply chain. We aim to provide the first commercial solution for measuring quantum states of light composed of thousands to several billion photons. The engagement of the Centre for Process Innovation and the University teams will, on the one hand, contribute to the design of the product, and on the other, serve as an end-user test for the developed technology. The outcome of this endeavour will be a versatile solution for the high sensitivity measurements empowering quantum metrology and some of the most advanced concepts of quantum computing.