Creating an artificial optical material to filter single photon states for quantum technologies

创造一种人造光学材料来过滤量子技术的单光子态

• 批准号: 2892070
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: CARDIFF UNIVERSITY
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2892070
• 关键词: Creating; artificial; optical; material; filter

This exciting project is to develop a new way of integrating quantum optic elements using artificial materials called metasurfaces. The successful applicant will work in an interdisciplinary team including physicists and engineers to design, fabricate and characterise novel optical devices for emerging quantum photonic technologies. The student will acquire valuable skills in numerical simulation, fabrication and quantum technologies during the project. In particular, this project will focus on building a new type of interferometer based on topological metasurfaces to manipulate the modes of photons. For practical implementations of the metasurfaces, dielectric materials such as Silica and Titanium Oxide will be used. This interferometer will be used to demonstrate the two-photon quantum interference, which causes pairs of identical photons to leave the interferometer together, despite the fact there is no interaction between photons. This apparent interaction - termed Hong-Ou-Mandel interference is at the heart of proposals for linear optical quantum computing and photonic networking. Despite the splendid advances in quantum optics in recent years, there remain many challenges for quantum optical networks. One key challenge is to scale down complex and bulky optical elements to miniaturised integrated optical devices while keeping the same functionalities or developing new ones. Metasurfaces present an exciting opportunity in this area, having already been successfully used in flat lenses sensing the chirality (handedness) of light and are now entering the field of quantum optics by realizing multiply entangled quantum states.In this project, the student will build a metasurface-based Hong-Ou-Mandel interferometer that will enable the control of this important quantum effect within an ultra-thin structure. This will also allow for a higher degree of freedom in controlling and implementing multiple functions such as polarization changes or phase shifts. Further, coupling between elements of the metasurface will use novel topological effects such as edge modes to allow new way of measuring single photons in far-field optical imaging.

这个令人兴奋的项目是开发一种使用称为超表面的人造材料集成量子光学元件的新方法。成功的申请人将在一个由物理学家和工程师组成的跨学科团队中工作，为新兴的量子光子技术设计、制造和表征新型光学器件。学生将在项目期间获得数值模拟、制造和量子技术方面的宝贵技能。特别是，该项目将专注于构建一种基于拓扑超表面的新型干涉仪来操纵光子模式。对于超表面的实际实现，将使用二氧化硅和氧化钛等介电材料。该干涉仪将用于演示双光子量子干涉，尽管事实上光子之间没有相互作用，但双光子量子干涉会导致成对的相同光子一起离开干涉仪。这种明显的相互作用（称为红欧曼德尔干涉）是线性光学量子计算和光子网络提案的核心。尽管近年来量子光学取得了巨大进步，但量子光网络仍然面临许多挑战。一项关键挑战是将复杂且笨重的光学元件缩小为小型化集成光学器件，同时保持相同的功能或开发新的功能。超表面在这一领域提供了一个令人兴奋的机会，它已经成功地用于感知光的手性（旋向性）的平面透镜，现在通过实现多重纠缠量子态进入量子光学领域。在这个项目中，学生将构建一个基于超表面的红欧曼德尔干涉仪，它将能够在超薄结构内控制这种重要的量子效应。这也将允许在控制和实现多种功能（例如偏振变化或相移）方面具有更高的自由度。此外，超表面元件之间的耦合将利用边缘模式等新颖的拓扑效应，以实现在远场光学成像中测量单光子的新方法。