Structured Ensembles of Atoms for Quantum Engineering of Light

Project Information

SEAQUEL

Grant agreement ID: 677470

DOI

10.3030/677470

Project closed

EC signature date 5 February 2016

Start date 1 July 2016

End date 31 December 2021

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)

Total cost

€ 1 500 000,00

EU contribution

€ 1 500 000,00

Coordinated by

CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE CNRS
France

Periodic Reporting for period 4 - SEAQUEL (Structured Ensembles of Atoms for Quantum Engineering of Light)

Reporting period: 2021-01-01 to 2021-12-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Engineering complex quantum system out of elementary quantum objects such as atoms or photons can boost the speed of some computations, help transmitting confidential information safely, or enhance the precision of measurement devices. Among existing elementary quantum bricks, photons are the only ones that can be transmitted over large distances, but they cannot efficiently interact with each other to form a complex system, which hampers their use in many applications. Our project circumvented this issue by combining tecniques from several branches of quantum engineering. We designed and built a new platform where photons can strongly interact with each other in a controlled way, enabling many applications in quantum communications, logic and simulations.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

We designed a new experimental platform for quantum engineering of light, aiming at creating and controlling strong interactions between optical photons. This platform combines the advantages of two existing approaches, one based on the strong coupling of light to individual quantum objects, the other one - on the conversion of photons into excitations of strongly interacting atoms. In a recent publication and in a series of conferences, we demonstrated that this combination successfully circumvents several major technical and physical limitations of these two approaches taken separately. We used this platform to deterministically generate non-classical states of light with a high purity. We also developed a ultra-compact system for controlling and imaging cold atoms in such hybrid quantum platforms, in order to make them more integrable.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Our platform successfully combines two approaches for deterministic quantum engineering of light, allowing us to circumvent their individual drawbacks. It already allowed us to deterministically generate non-classical light with high purity. In the near future, we will use it to create quantum logic gates enabling long-distance quantum communications, and to emulate highly-correlated quantum systems central to condensed-matter physics.

Quantum engineering of light with a collective superatom in a cavity