Quantum Processing via Four-Wave Mixing

了解光如何在微观或量子水平上与原子和材料相互作用，对于发展当前和未来的技术至关重要。这将导致电信、更小更灵敏的探测器、精确测量和量子信息应用的进步。该项目将开发使用线性和非线性光学的量子信息处理方法。制造和控制能够执行量子逻辑运算和高保真存储量子信息的明亮，确定性和高效的光子源是该领域的一些主要目标。实现这些目标和这样的设备网络将需要根本性的发展和在量子水平上控制光与物质之间相互作用的新方法。特别是，非线性光学是许多量子信息设备和系统的核心。例如，相关光束可以通过二阶或三阶非线性光学过程产生，其中一个或两个泵浦光子分别被湮灭以产生相关的“信号”和“空闲”光子。通过在不同配置中利用这些参数过程，也可以创建能够在不改变其量子态的情况下改变信号场频率的量子频率转换器。该项目的目标是利用在光纤和原子蒸气中执行的量子频率转换过程来实现各种关键功能，包括按需生成指定数量的光子，以及探索一种称为玻色子采样的量子计算形式。该项目将为量子技术的发展做出贡献，并为该领域的职业培养学生。在这个提议中，参数四波混频将被用来探索量子光学中的新现象和制度。具体来说，这项工作将探索频域的量子处理，它比空间和时域实现提供了许多关键优势。光子带隙光纤的高非线性特性将大大提高相干光子转换的效率，并实现从电信体制到可见光的量子频率转换。此外，先前在首席研究员小组中展示的近单位效率，低噪声量子频率转换器将被用于研究飞秒状态下的时间量子相关性，执行频域玻色子采样，并通过频率复用开发准确定性单光子源。

Understanding how light interacts with atoms and materials at the microscopic, or quantum, level is essential for developing current and future technologies. This will lead to advances in telecommunications, smaller and more sensitive detectors, precision measurements, and applications of quantum information. This project will develop methods for quantum information processing using linear and nonlinear optics. Manufacturing and controlling bright, deterministic, and efficient photon sources that can perform quantum logic operations and store quantum information with high fidelity are some of the major goals for this field. Realizing these goals and a network of such devices will require fundamental developments and new ways to control interactions between light and matter at the quantum level. In particular, nonlinear optics is at the heart of many of the quantum information devices and systems. For example, correlated light beams can be generated either through second- or third-order nonlinear optical processes in which one or two pump photons, respectively, are annihilated to create a correlated "signal" and "idler" photons. By utilizing these parametric processes in different configurations, it is also possible to create quantum frequency converters that are able to change the frequency of a signal field without changing its quantum state. The goal of this program is to utilize this quantum frequency conversion process performed in optical fibers and atomic vapors to achieve various critical functionalities including generating a specified number of photons on demand and exploring a form of quantum computation known as Boson sampling. This project will contribute to the development of quantum technologies and train students for careers in this field.In this proposal, parametric four-wave mixing will be exploited to explore new phenomena and regimes in quantum optics. Specifically, this work will explore quantum processing in the frequency domain, which offers a number of critical advantages over spatial- and time-domain implementations. The very high nonlinearities in photonic band-gap fibers will be used to greatly improve the efficiency of coherent photon conversion and to perform quantum frequency translation from the telecom regime to the visible. In addition, the near-unity efficiency, low-noise quantum frequency converter previously demonstrated in the principal investigator's group will be exploited to investigate temporal quantum correlations in the femtosecond regime, to perform frequency-domain Boson sampling, and to develop a quasi-deterministic single-photon source via frequency multiplexing.