Entangled photons are at the heart of many powerful quantum applications. By exploiting this unique quantum phenomenon, in which information correlates between two or more photons across space and time, it is possible to push the boundaries in the realms of computing, communications, cryptography and sensing, among others.
“Entanglement is a key resource for a lot of these different applications,” said UC Santa Barbara electrical and computer engineering professor Galan Moody. “And so we want to make entangled photon sources that are efficient, really bright and robust and stable, so they’re easy to use and ultimately scalable.”
Fortunately, with integrated photonics it is possible to do just that — make efficient, robust and stable sources of entangled photon pairs. In an invited paper published in the journal PRX Quantum, Moody and collaborators at UCSB and at the University of Pavia in Italy report their innovation, the development of a versatile chip-scale platform to generate these entangled particles at a high rate. “We can make many of them and many identical copies of them all on the same semiconductor chip,” Moody continued. “That helps us boost the entanglement rates and scale up the technology.”
