ExpandQISE: Track 2: Leveraging synthetic degrees of freedom for quantum state engineering in photonic chips

Cuny City College, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

Nontechnical Abstract: This ExpandQISE program at The City College of New York seeks to advance the fundamental understanding of quantum phenomena in engineered optical structures endowed with additional degrees of freedom by manipulating the fundamental properties of light and its interaction with nanomaterials. This initiative aims at the development of nascent quantum materials with novel properties that can be attained by combining topological photonic properties and quantum properties of light and matter. This project advances the fields of integrated quantum photonics through the systematic discovery of new materials that possess the necessary functionalities to enable development of novel quantum devices. To maximize the effectiveness of the discovery process, this project combines theoretical and experimental efforts from interdisciplinary teams, including academia (City College and University of Central Florida) and industry. In addition to its direct scientific impact, the project will have a broad societal impact through the development of emerging technologies for quantum information processing and advances ongoing workforce development efforts thanks to the strong involvement of undergraduate students in all aspects of research. Outreach programs with active participation of high school and undergraduate students, with focus on underrepresented groups, will further broaden the project impact. Technical Abstract: This ExpandQISE program at The City College of New York seeks to address fundamental questions of materials science and light-matter interactions in artificial quantum optical materials endowed with additional synthetic degrees of freedom – pseudo-spins – and characterized by nontrivial topological properties. Our research team builds on our existing expertise in theoretical nano-photonics as well as advanced fabrication and experimental techniques to attain novel materials characteristics and functionalities emerging in quantum regimes. Specifically, this activity focuses on development of the concept of active quantum topological materials that will enable control over quantum excitations of both light and matter on a photonic chip. This effort enables generation and manipulation of quantum states of structured optical modes and topological boundary states endowed with synthetic degrees of freedom on a chip. Additionally, by harnessing the fundamental properties of such quantum photonic states this project enables novel polaritonic states with tailored properties that can be used for quantum technologies, such as control of pseudo-spins with synthetic gauge fields engineered at nanoscale, including actively via light-matter interactions. The possibility to imprint the state of a pseudo-spin onto quantum states of light emitted by integrated quantum emitters enables novel opportunities for integrated quantum photonics, where quantum information is encoded in the modal structure of optical states. Our approach to quantum materials design leverages a variety of quantum excitations in materials integrated into topological photonic structures, such as van der Waals materials, organic excitonic materials, and wide bandgap semiconductors. The coupling of structured light with quantum emitters is attained through their precise integration. At the same time, strong and highly tailorable light-matter interactions engineered in our platform enable extreme nonlinearities, including nonlinear effects with selection rules dictated by symmetry-engineered pseudo-spins, photon blockade and synthetic gauge fields. Tunable synthetic gauge fields emerging from such tailored light-matter interactions open a pathway to realize unitary operations – reprogrammable quantum gates – in the photonic pseudo-spin subspace. This project is jointly funded by the Office of Multidisciplinary Activities (MPS/OMA), the Directorate of Engineering (ENG), and the Technology Frontiers Program (TIP/TF). This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.