| NSF Org: |
PHY Division Of Physics |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | August 17, 2016 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | July 22, 2018 |
| Award Number: | 1620822 |
| Award Instrument: | Continuing Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Alexander Cronin
acronin@nsf.gov (703)292-5302 PHY Division Of Physics MPS Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences |
| Start Date: | September 1, 2016 |
| End Date: | August 31, 2020 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $270,000.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $270,000.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
FY 2017 = $85,000.00 FY 2018 = $85,000.00 |
| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
1776 E 13TH AVE EUGENE OR US 97403-1905 (541)346-5131 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
5219 University of Oregon Eugene OR US 97403-5219 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): |
EPMD-ElectrnPhoton&MagnDevices, QIS - Quantum Information Scie |
| Primary Program Source: |
01001718DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT 01001819DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT |
| Program Reference Code(s): |
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| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.049 |
ABSTRACT
Visible light is one of the primary ways we get information about the world and the universe, for example using microscopes and telescopes. Light pulses are also used to convey information across the globe at unprecedented rates using the world-wide fiber-optical network that supports the Internet, e-commerce, and even the international financial markets. Furthermore, light can be used to control material systems with applications ranging from laser eye surgery to optical "tweezers" that can trap and manipulate individual molecules. Many of these developments have been enabled by new methods to generate, manipulate and detect light. Today, researchers are developing means to generate, control, and measure the fundamental constituents of light, single photons (individual light "particles"), which obey the laws of quantum physics. This project will explore methods to produce, manipulate and measure individual photons with well-defined pulse characteristics (color and temporal pulse shape) and examine the potential of such single-photon pulses for applications such as secure communications, enhanced precision measurements, and high-capacity computation. The project supports education through training of a diverse group of undergraduate, graduate, and post-doctoral researchers in the field of quantum information science, and provides outreach to local high schools and colleges.
This project aims to harness the potential advances in quantum technologies offered by encoding information in the wavelength and temporal shape of individual photons. By exploring methods to produce, manipulate and measure single photons with well-defined pulse characteristics (wavelength and temporal shape), this research program will examine the impact of spectral-temporal single-photon encoding for improved performance in applications such as sensing and quantum communication. To address these goals, the project explores wave-guided optical sources of controllable spectral-temporal entangled photon pairs based upon spontaneous nonlinear optical processes. It examines methods for manipulating single-photon pulses by application of well-defined temporal and spectral phase implemented using electro-optic phase modulators and engineered spectral dispersion in optical fibers. It also investigates methods to characterize the pulse-mode structure of one and two photons by temporal- and spectral-shearing interferometry. This platform for information encoding in the single-photon spectral-temporal shape offers increased information capacity for single photons in integrated-optical systems.
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PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
NSF Project Outcomes Report
The aims of this project were to develop methods to generate, manipulate and measure individual photons with well-defined pulse characteristics (color and temporal pulse shape) and explore their potential use for quantum applications. Over the duration of the project significant progress has been made toward these goals as discussed below.
Intellectual Merit: Encoding information in the temporal pulse shape of individual photons, the fundamental constituent of light, offers a breakthrough for optical quantum technologies by significantly increasing the information capacity that can be harnessed. Furthermore, the ability to control the temporal shape of photons is essential to realizing the quantum version of the Internet, where nodes within the network require matched photons to ensure high-fidelity communication. This project has developed a new experimental platform compatible with integrated optics to generate [1], manipulate [2] and detect [3-6] single-photon pulses. The key innovations that we introduced were the use of well-controlled electro-optic phase modulation and precise dispersion to manipulate optical pulses containing a single photon. These techniques allowed us to measure the temporal shape of single-photon pulses as shown in the Figure that plots the distribution of color (wavelength) and time of arrival for single photons. Here the unshaped distribution shows effects of dispersion resulting in correlations between the photon time of arrival and the wavelength (longer wavelengths travel faster than shorter wavelengths). The resulting pulse is stretched in time. The compensated distribution, which is generated by cancelling the effects of dispersion, displays no correlations between wavelength and arrival time. This pulse has the shortest possible duration for the given spectral bandwidth.
Building on these successes we developed techniques to generate [7] and measure [8] entangled states of photon pairs, which have correlations that cannot be explained by classical physics. These advancements will open up new avenues for optical quantum technologies based upon encoding information in the temporal shape of individual photons. There are still several challenges to be overcome to realize full control of pulsed single photons as we have laid out in [2]. These include generation of radio-frequency fields required for temporal phase modulation and reducing loss of components.
Broader Impacts: In addition to the broader scientific and technological impacts described above, this project has involved training and mentoring of 2 postdoctoral researchers, 2 graduate students, 3 undergraduate students. Over the project duration the PI developed and presented a set of optics demonstrations for local elementary schools. The PI organized the Southwest Quantum Information and Technology (SQuInT) 2020 Workshop (8-10 February 2020 in Eugene, Oregon), a Special Symposium on “Quantum Information in the Time-Frequency Domain,” at the 2019 OSA CLEO meeting held in San Jose, CA, and was a member of the program for 2017 Frontiers in Optics, FiO 3: Quantum Electronics and the Quantum Photonics and Information topical committee for the 2019 and 2020 Annual Conference of the IEEE Photonics Society (IPC). In addition, the PI has been invited to write a roadmap for temporal modes in QIST and a review article on electro-optic manipulation of temporal modes for QIST, which are forthcoming.
References:
1. T. Hiemstra, T. F. Parker, P. C. Humphreys, J. Tiedau, M. Beck, M. Karpiński, B. J. Smith, A. Eckstein, W. S. Kolthammer, and I. A. Walmsley, “Pure Single Photons from Scalable Frequency Multiplexing,” Phys. Rev. Applied 14, 014052 (2020).
2. J. Ashby, V. Theil, M. Karpiński, N. Treps, A. O. C. Davis, P. D’Ornelles, and B. J. Smith, “Multi-photon pulse mode unitary operations by spectral and temporal phase modulation,” arXiv:2009.07906 (under review).
3. A. O. C. Davis, P. M. Saulnier, M. Karpiński, and B. J. Smith, “Pulsed single-photon spectrograph by frequency-to-time mapping using chirped fiber Bragg gratings,” Optics Express 25, 12804 – 12811 (2017).
4. A. O. C. Davis, V. Thiel, M. Karpiński and B. J. Smith, “Measuring the single-photon temporal-spectral wave function,” Phys. Rev. Lett. 121, 083602 (2018).
5. A. O. C. Davis, V. Thiel, M. Karpiński and B. J. Smith, “Experimental single-photon pulse characterization by electro-optic shearing interferometry,” Phys. Rev. A Phys. Rev. A 98, 023840 (2018).
6. V. Thiel, A. O. C. Davis, K. Sun, P. D’Ornellas, X. Jin and B. J. Smith, “Single-photon characterization by two-photon spectral interferometry,” Optics Express 28, 19315-19324 (2020).
7. D. L. P. Vitullo, M. Karpiński, L. Mejling, K. Rottwitt, M. G. Raymer, and B. J. Smith, “Entanglement swapping for generation of heralded time-frequency-entangled photon pairs,” Phys. Rev. A 98, 023836 (2018).
8. A. O. C. Davis, V. Thiel and B. J. Smith, “Measuring the quantum state of a photon pair entangled in frequency and time,” Optica 7, 1317-1322 (2020).
Last Modified: 11/30/2020
Modified by: Brian J Smith
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