Quantum Transduction Between Optical and Microwave Photons Using Rare-Earth-Doped Materials
Abstract
Approach:We will use our recently developed on-chip photonic resonators that allow for efficient coherent coupling between optical photons and ensembles of rare-earth ions in crystals. The rare-earth ions have highly coherent transitions both in the optical and the microwave domains, and several proposals have shown that efficient quantum transduction can be achieved by coupling the rare-earths with high cooperativity to both optical an microwave resonators. We already demonstrated high cooperativity coupling in the optical domain using erbium ions embedded in a yttrium orthosilicate crystal. In this proposal we will also couple our devices with high cooperativity to microwave resonators and will demonstrate bi-directional conversion with high efficiency between optical and microwave photons. Overall, the field of quantum optical to microwave conversion is still in infancy, without convincing experiments showing a scalable technology that operates at a quantum level. The state of the art is given by a few experiments in optomechanics. The advantage of our approach is the use of rare-earth ions that have already been shown to provide a robust and scalable technology for optical quantum memories. Moreover, our devices are on chip and have no moving parts. If successful, this project will provide the first reliable quantum connectivity between optics and superconducting quantum machines.Objective:The objective of this research is to demonstrate quantum conversion between microwave (gigahertz) signals at single photon level and single optical (telecom) photons.Naval Relevance:The overarching goal of this work is to interconnect superconducting quantum computing chips via optical photons. Quantum communications between these chips can range from short range interconnects where information is sent between quantum processors located within one computing machine, to larger networks of quantum repeaters where information is sent via photons traveling in optical fibers and qubit processing isdone in local superconducting device nodes. This is an area highly relevant for DoD that will be the main beneficiary of first generation devices for quantum computing and quantum communications.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Aug 12, 2016
- Source ID
- N000141612676
Entities
People
- Andrei Faraon
Organizations
- California Institute of Technology
- Office of Naval Research
- United States Navy