Cavity-assisted non-classical light generation

量子光子学是一个新兴技术领域，有望给科学和日常生活带来革命性的变化。在其他好处中，预计它将迎来超安全的通信、强大的、超快的计算机、具有增强的灵敏度和功能的传感器以及极大地增加数据存储。这些进展都是以发展非经典光源为前提的。为了有效地过渡到利用量子叠加和纠缠的量子2.0设备，我们必须提高在可扩展的集成体系结构中产生和处理非经典光态的能力。产生光的多个态是一个具有挑战性的问题，对非经典光的实际应用至关重要。固态量子发射体，特别是半导体量子点(QD)，提供了一种吸引人的量子系统，可以利用成熟的半导体制造技术，通过结合到半导体结构中来相对容易地进行控制。然而，这些发射体在发射波长和速率方面的不均匀是构建可扩展量子光子网络的重要障碍。例如，对于涉及相同光子的协议，例如线性光学量子计算，或者涉及两个量子比特之间的光子交换的协议，量子点的使用是被禁止的。值得注意的是，这个问题可以通过绝热通道技术来克服，例如腔辅助受激拉曼绝热通道(STIRAP)过程。该项目的目标是研究腔辅助方案以产生高质量的单光子，通过将实验技术与新颖的突破性理论和计算建模方法相结合来实现。这种微观建模自然会考虑到量子点的精确位置和大小，以及双折射等对复杂协议至关重要的影响。除了实现高质量的单光子源，这项提议还为确定性光子-光子门铺平了道路，这是高效光子量子计算的关键资源。这项提议是通过结合三个小组的免费领先专业知识而实现的-两个理论小组在开发革命性的理论框架方面提供独特和互补的专业知识，以及一个试验组进行关键实验来验证新理论。米勒教授的团队在利用腔QED系统中的半导体量子点产生非经典光方面拥有世界领先的专业知识。斯拉夫切娃博士的团队开创了一种新的量子随机理论，用于模拟量子-光子纳米结构和设备中的光-物质相互作用。Jirauschek教授的团队在统计电磁学方法和高精度数值算法方面拥有深厚的专业知识，这些方法用于求解应用于光电子器件动力学的麦克斯韦-布洛赫方程。

Quantum photonics is an emergent field of technology promising to revolutionise science and day-to-day life alike. Amongst other benefits, it is expected to usher in ultra-secure communication, powerful, super-fast computers, sensors with enhanced sensitivity and functionality and vastly increased data storage. These advancements are all based on the premise of developing non-classical light sources. In order to transition effectively to Quantum 2.0 devices that exploit quantum superposition and entanglement, it is essential that we advance our capability to generate and process non-classical states of light in scalable, integrated architectures.Producing number-states of light is a challenging problem that is central to the practical use of non-classical states of light. Solid-state quantum emitters, and in particular semiconductor quantum dots (QDs), provide an attractive quantum system that can be relatively easily controlled by incorporation into semiconductor structures, taking advantage of the matured semiconductor fabrication technologies. However, the inhomogeneity of these emitters in terms of emission wavelength and rate is a significant obstacle for constructing scalable quantum-photonic networks. For instance, the use of QDs is prohibitive for protocols that involve identical photons, such as linear optical quantum computing, or that involve the exchange of a photon between two qubits. Strikingly, this problem can be overcome by using adiabatic passage techniques, such as cavity-assisted stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP) processes. The goal of this project is to investigate cavity-assisted schemes for the generation of high-quality single photons, enabled by combining experimental techniques with novel ground-breaking theoretical and computational modelling methods. This microscopic modelling naturally takes into account the precise position and size of the QD, as well as impacts such as birefringence, which are crucial for sophisticated protocols. In addition to enabling high-quality single-photon sources, this proposal paves the way for deterministic photon-photon gates, a key resource for efficient photonic quantum computation.This proposal is enabled by combining the complimentary leading expertise of three groups – two theory groups providing unique and complementary expertise in the development of a revolutionary theoretical framework, and an experimental group performing crucial experiments to validate the new theory. Prof Müller’s group has world-leading expertise in non-classical light generation with semiconductor QDs in the cavity-QED regime. Dr Slavcheva’s group has pioneered a new quantum stochastic theory for modelling light-matter interactions in quantum-photonic nanostructures and devices. Prof Jirauschek’s group has profound expertise in statistical electromagnetics methods and highly-accurate numerical algorithms for solving the Maxwell-Bloch equations applied to the dynamics of optoelectronic devices.