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Quantum quirk

Submitted by healys on Wed, 2011-01-12 14:22.

January 13, 2011

Quantum quirk contained

By Leanne Yohemas

Dr. Wolfgang
Tittel is working on a way to make quantum networks a reality.  Photo
credit: Riley BrandtResearchers at the University
of Calgary, in Canada, collaborating with the University of Paderborn, in
Germany, are working on a way to make quantum networks a reality and have
published their findings in the journal Nature. A similar finding by a
group at the University of Geneva, in Switzerland is reported in the same
issue.

“We have demonstrated, for the first time, that a crystal can store
information encoded into, what’s called in quantum mechanics, entangled
quantum states of photons,” says paper co-author Dr. Wolfgang Tittel of
the U of C’s Institute for Quantum Information Science.

“This discovery constitutes an important milestone on the path toward
quantum networks, and will hopefully enable building quantum networks in a
few years.”

In current communication networks, information is sent through pulses
of light moving through optical fibre. The information can be stored on
computer hard disks for future use.

Quantum networks operate differently than the networks we use daily.

“What we have is similar but it
does not use pulses of light,” says Tittel, who is a professor in the U of
C’s physics and astronomy department. “In quantum communication, we also
have to store and retrieve information. But in our case, the information
is encoded into entangled states of photons.”

In this state, photons are “entangled,” and remain so even when they
fly apart. In a way, they communicate with each other even when they are
very far apart. The difficulty is getting them to stay put without
breaking this fragile quantum link.

To achieve this task, the researchers used a crystal doped with
rare-earth ions and cooled it to -270 Celsius. At these temperatures,
material properties change and allowed the researchers to store and
retrieve these photons without measurable degradation.

Quantum
networks will allow sending information without being afraid of somebody
listening in. Photo credit: Riley BrandtAn
important feature is that this memory device uses almost entirely standard
fabrication technologies. “The resulting robustness and the possibility to
integrate the memory with current technology, such as fibre-optic cables,
is important when moving the currently fundamental research towards
applications.”

Quantum networks will allow sending information without being afraid of
somebody listening in.

“The results show that entanglement, a quantum physical property that
has puzzled philosophers and physicists for hundreds of years, is not as
fragile as is generally believed,” says Tittel.

The article entitled Broadband waveguide quantum memory for entangled photons
is published in Nature and co-written by Wolfgang Tittel.

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