Project description
Novel electro-optic platform holds promise for quantum technologies
Photons do not easily interact with other photons, which makes them ideal information carriers for long-distance communications. Funded by the European Research Council, the cQEO project will combine fibre optics, which offers the best route to realising robust quantum networks, with superconducting qubits – one of the leading platforms for realising quantum processors. Researchers will study strong interactions between superconducting circuits and optical photons to entangle qubits over several kilometres of fibre. cQEO will shed light on the electro-optic coupling of individual quanta in ultra-cold environments and lead to distributed information processing and sensing with unprecedentedly low signal powers.
Objective
Optical photons propagate with ultra-low loss and do not interact easily which makes them perfect information carriers. Logical operations and sensing on the other hand rely on nonlinearities and strong interactions. GHz clock speed electrical circuits are used for computing and wireless receivers – a frequency range where also some of the most promising solid-state quantum devices, such as superconducting circuits and semiconductor spin qubits, operate and interact. The field of microwave photonics combines these two domains of the electromagnetic spectrum with a diverse set of applications ranging from radar and satellite communication, to radio-over-fiber and remote sensing. At the quantum level however, no equivalent technology exists. This is particularly problematic because quantum systems rely on analog information exchange in a low-noise environment. Microwave quantum circuits so far are restricted to operate inside an isolated space at millikelvin temperatures.
Building on our modular electro-optic platform - the lowest noise microwave-optical interconnect to date - cQEO will realize a remarkable set of new experiments that were not possible before: Heralded entanglement and teleportation of long-lived qubit states over kilometers of fiber, synthesis of optical cat states from microwave cats, photonic control and readout of superconducting circuits, as well as photonic masing and RF sensing below the standard quantum limit. Pushing towards higher electro-optic cooperativities will open up the rich physics known from cavity optomechanics, except now it is the readily accessible microwave field that experiences dynamical and quantum back-action rather than a mechanical mode. This is a new physical limit akin to nonlinear optics that was predicted a decade ago but never realized.
cQEO aims to uncover the full range of new physics offered by high quantum cooperativity electro-optics combined with the unique capabilities of circuit quantum electrodynamics.
Fields of science
- natural sciencesphysical sciencesopticscavity optomechanics
- natural sciencesphysical sciencesquantum physics
- engineering and technologymechanical engineeringvehicle engineeringaerospace engineeringsatellite technology
- engineering and technologyelectrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineeringelectronic engineeringcomputer hardwarequantum computers
- natural sciencesphysical sciencesopticsnonlinear optics
Keywords
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC GrantsHost institution
3400 Klosterneuburg
Austria