Applied quantum optics promises to revolutionise many aspects of information and communication technology, but we cannot yet satisfy the very difficult simultaneous requirements on scale and performance. It is now widely accepted that only integrated optics can achieve the required scale, but existing chip-scale platforms simply cannot achieve the required performance. Silicon photonics—with natural manufacturability, miniaturisation, and good performance—now dominates the research effort. However, in silicon at 1.5 μm, two-photon absorption (TPA) and cross-TPA unacceptably limit the critical performance parameter—loss.

I will discuss our efforts towards a new platform for quantum optics, which retains the benefits of silicon photonics, but removes its linear and nonlinear loss, by moving entirely to the mid-infrared (MIR). We demonstrate a MIR source quantum-correlated light, the efficient single-photon detection of that light, and high-quality two-photon interference (the first in the MIR), all at wavelengths around 2.1 μm.

报告人简介：Dr. Josh Silverstone is a senior postdoc research scientist in the University of Bristol, and his team in Bristol is currently developing Silicon quantum computer with light, with the support from the Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship. He has published peer-reviewed papers in Science, Nature Photonics, Nature Communications and others.