Communications of the ACM
Researchers Create 'building Block' of Quantum Networks
A diamond micro-ring coupled to a ridge waveguide; according to researchers at the Institute of Physics, the device holds the potential to become the memory or the processing element of an on-chip quantum network.
Credit: Institute of Physics
A group of U.S. researchers have constructed a proof-of-concept device that could clear a path for on-chip optical quantum networks by combining a single nitrogen-vacancy center in diamond with an optical resonator and an optical waveguide. The device could potentially function as the memory or processing element of such a network and become one of the building blocks of quantum networks.
The photoluminescent nitrogen-vacancy center both absorbs and emits photons, and the emitted photons are entangled with the center. The center is located within the resonator as it is more likely to discharge photons than when it is placed in the waveguide or within plain diamond. The waveguide steers the photons in a desired direction through gratings at either end.
"In this work we ... demonstrate that photons--the information carriers--from a single nitrogen-vacancy center can be coupled to an optical resonator and then further coupled to a photonic waveguide," says lead study author and professor Andrei Faraon. "We hope that multiple devices of this kind will be interconnected in a photonic network on a chip."
From Institute of Physics
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