Charles Santori

Indistinguishable photons from a single-photon device

Single-photon sources have recently been demonstrated using a variety of devices, including molecules, mesoscopic quantum wells, colour centres, trapped ions and semiconductor quantum dots. Compared with a Poisson-distributed source of the same intensity, these sources rarely emit two or more photons in the same pulse. Numerous applications for single-photon sources have been proposed in the field of quantum information, but most—including linear-optical quantum computation—also require consecutive photons to have identical wave packets. For a source based on a single quantum emitter, the emitter must therefore be excited in a rapid or deterministic way, and interact little with its surrounding environment. Here we test the indistinguishability of photons emitted by a semiconductor quantum dot in a microcavity through a Hong–Ou–Mandel-type two-photon interference experiment. We find that consecutive photons are largely indistinguishable, with a mean wave-packet overlap as large as 0.81, making this source useful in a variety of experiments in quantum optics and quantum information.

Triggered single photons from a quantum dot

We demonstrate a new method for generating triggered single photons. After a laser pulse generates excitons inside a single quantum dot, electrostatic interactions between them and the resulting spectral shifts allow a single emitted photon to be isolated. Correlation measurements show a reduction of the two-photon probability to 0.12 times the value for Poisson light. Strong antibunching persists when the emission is saturated. The emitted photons are also polarized.

Resonant enhancement of the zero-phonon emission from a colour centre in a diamond cavity

Integrated quantum photonic technologies are key for future applications in quantum information, ultralow-power opto-electronics and sensing. As individual quantum bits, nitrogen-vacancy centres in diamond are among the most promising solid-state systems identified to date, because of their long-lived electron and nuclear spin coherence, and capability for individual optical initialization, readout and information storage. The major outstanding hurdle lies in interconnecting many nitrogen vacancies for large-scale computation. One of the most promising approaches in this regard is to couple them to optical resonators, which can be further interconnected in a photonic network. Here, we demonstrate coupling of the zero-phonon line of individual nitrogen vacancies to the modes of microring resonators fabricated in single-crystal diamond. Zero-phonon line enhancement by more than a factor of 10 is estimated from lifetime measurements. The devices are fabricated using standard semiconductor techniques and off-the-shelf materials, thus enabling integrated diamond photonics.

Diamonds with a high density of nitrogen-vacancy centers for magnetometry applications

V. M. Acosta, E. Bauch, 2 M. P. Ledbetter, C. Santori, K.-M. C. Fu, P. E. Barclay, R. G. Beausoleil, H. Linget, J. F. Roch, F. Treussart, S. Chemerisov, W. Gawlik, and D. Budker 8, 9 1 Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-7300 2 Technische Universität Berlin, Hardenbergstraÿe 28, 10623 Berlin, Germany 3 Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, 1501 Page Mill Rd., Palo Alto, CA 94304 4 Ecole Normale Supérieure de Cachan, 61 Avenue du Président Wilson, 94235 Cachan CEDEX, France 5 Laboratoire de Photonique Quantique et Moléculaire (CNRS UMR 8537), Ecole Normale Supérieure de Cachan, 61 Avenue du Président Wilson, 94235 Cachan CEDEX, France 6 Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, IL, 60439, U.S.A. 7 Center for Magneto-Optical Research, Institute of Physics, Jagiellonian University, Reymonta 4, 30-059 Kraków, Poland Nuclear Science Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley CA 94720, USA budker@berkeley.edu (Dated: July 31, 2009)

Secure communication: quantum cryptography with a photon turnstile.

Quantum cryptography generates unbreakable cryptographic codes by encoding information using single photons, which until now have relied on highly attenuated lasers as sources. But these sources can create pulses that contain more than one photon, making them vulnerable to eavesdropping by photon splitting. Here we present an experimental demonstration of quantum cryptography that uses a photon turnstile device, which is more reliable for delivering photons one at a time. This device allows completely secure communication in circumstances under which this would be impossible with an attenuated laser.

Coherent population trapping of single spins in diamond under optical excitation

Coherent population trapping is demonstrated in single nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond under optical excitation. For sufficient excitation power, the fluorescence intensity drops almost to the background level when the laser modulation frequency matches the 2.88 GHz splitting of the ground states. The results are well described theoretically by a four-level model, allowing the relative transition strengths to be determined for individual centers. The results show that all-optical control of single spins is possible in diamond.

Chip-based microcavities coupled to nitrogen-vacancy centers in single crystal diamond

Optical coupling of nitrogen-vacancy centers in single-crystal diamond to an on-chip microcavity is demonstrated. The microcavity is fabricated from a hybrid gallium phosphide and diamond material system and supports whispering gallery mode resonances with spectrometer resolution limited Q>25 000.

Conversion of neutral nitrogen-vacancy centers to negatively charged nitrogen-vacancy centers through selective oxidation

The conversion of neutral nitrogen-vacancy centers to negatively charged nitrogen-vacancy centers is demonstrated for centers created by ion implantation and annealing in high-purity diamond. Conversion occurs with surface exposure to an oxygen atmosphere at 465 °C. The spectral properties of the charge-converted centers are investigated. Charge state control of nitrogen-vacancy centers close to the diamond surface is an important step toward the integration of these centers into devices for quantum information and magnetic sensing applications.

Coherent interference effects in a nano-assembled diamond NV center cavity-QED system.

Diamond nanocrystals containing NV color centers are positioned with 100-nanometer-scale accuracy in the near-field of a high-Q SiO(2) microdisk cavity using a fiber taper. The cavity modified nanocrystal photoluminescence is studied, with Fano-like quantum interference features observed in the far-field emission spectrum. A quantum optical model of the system is proposed and fit to the measured spectra, from which the NV(-) zero phonon line coherent coupling rate to the microdisk is estimated to be 28 MHz for a nearly optimally placed nanocrystal.

A Nanophotonic Interconnect for High-Performance Many-Core Computation

Silicon nanophotonics holds the promise of revolutionizing computing by enabling parallel architectures that combine unprecedented performance and ease of use with affordable power consumption. Here we describe the results of a detailed multiyear design study of dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) on-chip and off-chip interconnects and the device technologies that could improve computing performance by a factor of 20 above industry projections over the next decade.