Microstructured Fibre for Quantum Information

该项目的重点是基于光子晶体光纤(PCF)的用于量子信息应用的单光子和多光子光源的开发。它汇集了两个国际知名的英国研究团队，以设计、制造和测试最适合这一应用的设备。量子光学的最新发展为我们看待信息、通信和计算的方式带来了新的曙光。我们不再局限于经典的操作，但我们也可以将光的基本量子性质用于现实世界。这方面最发达的例子是量子密码术；这是一种以可证明的安全性交换密钥的方式。包括我们在内的各个团队现在都在寻求超越量子密码学，进行多光子量子逻辑和量子通信实验。这些实验的关键资源是预示的单光子、双光子和纠缠的双光子的来源，并最终产生多个光子。目前正在推动光纤实验，因为其固有的单一空间模式、易于对准以及可用于通信和隐形传送实验的长传输长度。最近，通过巴斯和布里斯托尔小组的讨论，我们意识到PCF可以被用作有效的单模对光子源。我们对光子晶体光纤和量子信息‘工具箱’的知识结合在一起，导致了这一提议的发展。我们已经进行了开创性的初步实验，使用最初为其他应用设计的现成光纤来产生双光子。在这里，我们对设计光子对光纤源的终极性能感兴趣，并希望生产出世界上第一个三光子源。这将使我们能够在考虑到量子信息应用的情况下进行世界领先的多光子实验。

This project focuses on the development of single- and multi-photon sources for quantum information applications based on photonic crystal fibres (PCFs). It brings together two internationally renowned UK research teams in order to design, build and test devices which are optimally tailored to this application.Recent developments in quantum optics have shed new light on the way we see information, communication and computation. No-longer are we limited to classical operations, but we can also harness the fundamental quantum nature of light to real-world uses. The most developed example of this is quantum cryptography; a way of exchanging cryptographic keys with provable security. Various groups, including ours, are now looking to go beyond quantum cryptography to perform multi-photon quantum logic and quantum communication experiments. Key resources for these experiments are sources of heralded single photons, pair photons and entangled pair photons and eventually multiple photons. There is currently a drive towards experiments in optical fibre, because of the inherent single spatial mode, ease of alignment and long transmission lengths possible for communication and teleportation experiments. Recently through discussions between the Bath and Bristol groups we realised that PCFs could be used as efficient single mode pair photon sources. Our combined knowledge of PCFs and the quantum information 'toolbox' has then led to the development of this proposal. We have already performed ground breaking preliminary experiments generating pair photons using off-the-shelf fibre originally designed for other applications. Here we are interested in engineering the ultimate performance from fibre sources of photon pairs and hope to produce the worlds first three photon source. This will allow us to perform world leading multiphoton experiments with quantum information applications in mind.