Broadband Quantum Synthesizer (BQS)

量子技术是英国和加拿大工业战略的重要组成部分，有可能彻底改变数字世界，扩展当前成像设备的功能，并促进使用量子计算解决复杂计算的新药开发。英国和加拿大的高科技产业、大学和研究中心正在进行合作，将这些科学概念转化为可获得的技术。为了实现这一目标，政府和行业承诺提供超过10亿英镑的资金。光子学是引领量子技术进步和应用的部门之一。光是量子态的理想载体，是量子通信的必要条件，也是一种强大的测量工具，使我们能够观察最先进技术和生命本身所依赖的过程中物质的结构和演化。在基于光子学的量子技术领域，有两种基本方法：准备具有有限数量光子的辐射，然后借助于单光子探测器测量，通过分析测量事件之间的相关性提取非经典特性，或称为压缩光的宏观量子态产生，同时携带许多（数十亿或更多）光子之间的纠缠。后一种方法被称为连续变量量子光学，它使我们这个时代最先进的量子光学努力成为可能，例如用于探测引力波的先进LIGO，并且需要高灵敏度测量和低损耗来保持量子特性，从而增强经典光。具有皮秒或短持续时间的脉冲压缩光现在被应用于增强对生物相关效应的感测，例如在显微镜中。然而，目前的技术在如何有效地产生短压缩光脉冲方面存在局限性，通过这项可行性研究，我们的目标是开发一种用于产生和操纵持续时间低于100 fs（可能低于40 fs）和>3dB压缩的超短压缩光脉冲的工具，克服当前的最先进技术，并为未来生物光子学等关键领域的研究提供支持。

Quantum technologies are a vital component of the industrial strategy in the UK and Canada, with the potential to revolutionize the digital world, expand the capabilities of current imaging devices, and facilitate the development of new drugs using quantum computing to solve complex calculations. Collaborations between UK and Canadian high-tech industries, universities, and research centres are ongoing to translate these scientific concepts into accessible technologies. To achieve this goal, funding of over £1 billion has been pledged by governments and industries. Photonics is among the sectors spearheading the advancement and application of quantum technologies. Light is an ideal carrier of quantum states, essential for quantum communication, and it is also a powerful measuring tool, allowing us to observe the structure and the evolution of matter in processes underpinning the most advanced technologies and life itself.In the realm of photonics-based quantum technologies, there are two fundamental approaches: either radiation with a limited number of photons is prepared and then measured with the aid of single-photon detectors, extracting the non-classical properties by analyzing the correlations between measured events, or macroscopic quantum states called squeezed light are generated, carrying entanglement among many (billions and more) photons at one time. This latter approach takes the name of continuous-variable quantum optics, it empowers the most advanced metrological endeavours of our time, such as advanced LIGO for the detection of gravitational waves and requires high sensitivity measurements and low losses to retain the quantum properties entailing an enhancement over the classical light. Pulsed squeezed light, with picosecond or shorted duration, is now being applied to enhance sensing of biologically relevant effects, for instance, in microscopes. However, the current technology has limits in how short squeezed light pulses can be effectively generated.With this feasibility study, we aim to develop a tool for the generation and manipulation of ultrashort squeezed light pulses with durations below 100fs (potentially sub 40fs) and \>3dB squeezing, overcoming the current state-of-the-art and empowering future research in crucial fields such as bio-photonics.