7 March 2016
A new ultra-bright source of single photons - 15 times brighter than commonly used sources and emitting photons that are 99.5% indistinguishable from one another - has been developed by researchers from the CNRS, Université Paris Diderot, and Université Paris-Sud. This feat was achieved thanks to the nanometrically-precise positioning of a quantum dot within an optical microcavity. Adding an electrical control to the device helped reduce the "noise" around the quantum dot, which generally renders photons different from one another. Obtained in collaboration with researchers from Brisbane (Australia), these results make it possible to conduct quantum computing of unprecedented complexity, a first step toward the creation of optical quantum computers. The results will be published in Nature Photonics on March 7, 2016.
Bibliography:
Near Optimal Single Photon Sources in the Solid State. Niccolo Somaschi, Valérian Giesz, Lorenzo de Santis, Juan Carlos Loredo, Marcelo Almeida, Gaston Hornecker, Simone Luca Portalupi, Thomas Grange, Carlos Anton, Justin Demory, Carmen Gomez, Isabelle Sagnes, Norberto Daniel Kimura, Aristide Lemaître, Alexia Auffèves, Andrew G. White, Loic Lanco and Pascale Senellart, Nature Photonics, 7 march 2016. DOI:10.1038/Nphoton.2016.23.
