Organic Rare-Earth Single Photon Sources for Quantum Information Technology

量子信息技术(QIT)将给我们的计算、通信和信息安全方式带来革命性的变化。将量子技术集成到可扩展的平台上，制造量子集成电路的能力是圣杯，目前光子方法看起来非常有希望，因为它们可以在室温下运行，并利用现代光子集成电路(PIC)技术。然而，所有实现QIT的光子方法都需要外部单光子源，这目前依赖于光子的参数下转换；这是昂贵、笨重的，需要精确的光纤耦合到PIC，并且极大地限制了可以实现的复杂性。该方案旨在展示一种可以直接集成到光子集成电路(PIC)中并且可以电抽运的超低功率单光子发射器(SPE)源。这是一项变革性的技术，将允许将大量SPE直接集成到PIC上的波导中，从而产生可在室温下运行的可扩展量子处理器。

Quantum information technologies (QITs) will produce a revolutionary change in our approach to computation, communication, and information security. The ability to integrate quantum technology onto a scalable platform, to make a quantum integrated circuit, is the holy-grail, and currently photonic approaches look highly promising as they can operate at room temperature and utilise modern photonic integrated circuit (PIC) technologies. However, all photonic approaches to QIT require external single photon sources, which currently rely on parametric down-conversion of photons; this is expensive, bulky, requires precise optical fibre coupling to the PIC, and hugely limits the complexity that can be achieved. This proposal seeks to demonstrate an ultra-low power single photon emitter (SPE) source that can be directly integrated into photonic integrated circuits (PICs) and which can be electrically pumped. This is a transformative technology that will allow for the integration of numerous SPEs directly into waveguides on PICs and hence lead to scalable quantum processors that operate at room temperature.