EAGER: New lower-cost technology to produce many entangled photons and test their properties

University Of Maryland Baltimore County, Baltimore MD

Investigators

Abstract

Title: New lower-cost technology to produce many entangled photons and test their properties The new science of quantum entanglement has opened up a wide variety of new, emerging and possible technologies, such as quantum computing, secure quantum communication, quantum imaging, quantum lithography (an approach to nanofabrication) and others. The cost of producing two entangled photons is a crucial driver in the development and use of these technologies. This PI has been one of the world leaders in producing high-precision entangled photons. He (along with two other groups) has also been able to produce three entangled photons. He has had a recent breakthrough, proven in experiment, for producing two entangled photons by a radically new technology, which promises a great reduction in cost, and also opens the door to entangling more than two photons at an acceptable cost and precision. In this project, he plans to demonstrate that this promise is real, and to undertake new studies of fundamental physics made possible by the availability of more entangled photons. It is hoped that these new studies will open the door to new paradigms and technologies in quantum technology, based on the use of more than two entangled photons. Past demonstrations of three entangled photons (in a large laboratory in Sichuan province of China) have relied on complicated systems using multiple steps of four-wave mixing in nonlinear crystals. This new technique uses thermal effects and noise cancellation to achieve the same effect. In experiment, it accurately reproduces the usual two-photon Bell double coincidence rate. In the first stage of this work, the PI will produce the GHZ "phi" state, and perform the equivalent of the Bell's Theorem experiment but with three polarizers, and varying the order at which the polarizers are reached, as a test of fundamental principles. He will then progress to demonstrating larger and larger numbers of entangled photons, up to more than 100, and performing experiments relevant to possible applications.