Atom-based Quantum Photonics

该平台赠款的目标是为达勒姆-纽卡斯尔联合量子中心（JQC）达勒姆节点的一系列活动提供基础支持。这些是原子与电磁辐射相互作用的一般领域（在我们的例子中，主要是可见光和近红外线，延伸到紫外线，微波和太赫兹）。我们研究的物理系统由加热容器中的气体原子或用激光冷却到绝对零度以上百万分之一度的原子组成。它们为量子力学的详细研究和开发提供了完美的机会，以一种易于访问和易于控制的方式。除了利用光来了解原子的行为外，我们还利用了许多机会来制造基于我们在原子-光相互作用方面的专业知识的光学设备。这项平台资助将使我们能够通过汇集个别成功的研究主题和技术来建立我们现有的优势。这需要一种混合的方法，将目前不同的实验主题结合在一起，使其同时工作，并扩展到量子体系中。我们对这一冒险挑战的愿景是在基于原子的量子光子学领域开发新技术，目的是制造和操纵光子（光的基本粒子，或量子）。21世纪见证了操纵单个量子实体（单个原子、单个离子、单个光子……）的研究活动的爆炸式增长。这个主题是2012年诺贝尔物理学奖的主题，参见http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2012/。最重要的突破之一是认识到纠缠的神秘量子特性除了是爱因斯坦“幽灵般的超距作用”的核心之外，也是新兴的量子信息处理领域的资源。有一种趋势是利用量子计算机中的量子比特等单个量子实体的特性，这可能会产生前所未有的计算设备，利用量子系统中指数级增长的复杂性。光子是量子器件不同节点之间量子信息的理想介质，也是量子存储器中与原子交互的理想介质。我们的实验结果将被纳入调查人员为公众和学生所做的讲座中。

The goal of this Platform Grant is to provide underpinning support for a range of activities at the Durham node of the Joint Quantum Centre (JQC) Durham-Newcastle. These are in the general area of the interaction of atoms with electromagnetic radiation (in our case, mostly visible light and near infrared, extending into the ultraviolet, microwaves and terahertz). The physical systems we study consist of either gas atoms in a heated container, or atoms cooled with lasers to within a millionth of a degree above absolute zero. They offer perfect opportunities for the detailed study and exploitation of quantum mechanics, in an accessible and easily controllable way. In addition to using light to understand the behaviour of the atoms, we have taken advantage of numerous opportunities to make optical devices based on our expertise in atom-light interactions. This Platform Grant will enable us to build on our existing strengths by bringing together individually successful research themes and techniques. This requires a hybrid approach where currently separate experimental themes are brought together, made to work simultaneously, and extended into the quantum regime. Our vision for this adventurous challenge is to develop novel techniques within the domain of atom-based quantum photonics, with the aim being to make and manipulate photons (the elementary particle, or quantum, of light).The 21st century has witnessed an explosion of research activity into manipulating individual quantum entities (single atoms, single ions, single photons...). This theme was the subject of the 2012 Nobel Prize in Physics, see http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2012/. One of the most significant breakthroughs is the realisation that the mysterious quantum property of entanglement in addition to being at the heart of Einstein's "spooky action at a distance" was also a resource for the emerging field of quantum information processing. There is a drive towards harnessing the properties of single quantum entities such as qubits in a quantum computer, which could yield computing devices with unprecedented power exploiting the exponential scale up of complexity in a quantum system. Photons are the ideal mediators of quantum information between different nodes of a quantum device, and to interface with atoms in a quantum memory.The results from our experiments will be incorporated into talks for the public and schoolchildren given by the investigators.