Yueh Nan Chen

Witnessing Quantum Coherence: from solid-state to biological systems

Quantum coherence is one of the primary non-classical features of quantum systems. While protocols such as the Leggett-Garg inequality (LGI) and quantum tomography can be used to test for the existence of quantum coherence and dynamics in a given system, unambiguously detecting inherent “quantumness” still faces serious obstacles in terms of experimental feasibility and efficiency, particularly in complex systems. Here we introduce two “quantum witnesses” to efficiently verify quantum coherence and dynamics in the time domain, without the expense and burden of non-invasive measurements or full tomographic processes. Using several physical examples, including quantum transport in solid-state nanostructures and in biological organisms, we show that these quantum witnesses are robust and have a much finer resolution in their detection window than the LGI has. These robust quantum indicators may assist in reducing the experimental overhead in unambiguously verifying quantum coherence in complex systems.

Surface plasmons in a metal nanowire coupled to colloidal quantum dots: Scattering properties and quantum entanglement

We investigate coherent single surface-plasmon transport in a metal nanowire strongly coupled to two colloidal quantum dots. Analytical expressions are obtained for the transmission and reflection coefficients by solving the corresponding eigenvalue equation. Remote entanglement of the wave functions of the two quantum dots can be created if the inter-dot distance is equal to a multiple half-wavelength of the surface plasmon. Furthermore, by applying classical laser pulses to the quantum dots, the entangled states can be stored in metastable states which are decoupled from the surface plasmons.

Spontaneous emission of quantum dot excitons into surface plasmons in a nanowire

The spontaneous emission (SE) of quantum dot (QD) excitons into surface plasmons in a cylindrical nanowire is investigated theoretically. Maxwells equations with appropriate boundary conditions are solved numerically to obtain the dispersion relations of surface plasmons. The SE rate of QD excitons is found to be greatly enhanced at certain values of the exciton bandgap. Application in generation of remote entangled states via superradiance is also pointed out and may be observable with current technology.

Distinguishing quantum and classical transport through nanostructures.

We consider the question of how to distinguish quantum from classical transport through nanostructures. To address this issue we have derived two inequalities for temporal correlations in nonequilibrium transport in nanostructures weakly coupled to leads. The first inequality concerns local charge measurements and is of general validity; the second concerns the current flow through the device and is relevant for double quantum dots. Violation of either of these inequalities indicates that physics beyond that of a classical Markovian model is occurring in the nanostructure.

Current Detection of Superradiance and Induced Entanglement of Double Quantum Dot Excitons

We propose to measure the superradiance effect by observing the current through a semiconductor double-dot system. An electron and a hole are injected separately into one of the quantum dots to form an exciton and then recombine radiatively. We find that the stationary current shows oscillatory behavior as one varies the interdot distance. The amplitude of oscillation can be increased by incorporating the system into a microcavity. Furthermore, the current is suppressed if the dot distance is small compared to the wavelength of the emitted photon. This photon trapping phenomenon generates the entangled state and may be used to control the emission of single photons at predetermined times.

Quantifying Non-Markovianity with Temporal Steering.

Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) steering is a type of quantum correlation which allows one to remotely prepare, or steer, the state of a distant quantum system. While EPR steering can be thought of as a purely spatial correlation, there does exist a temporal analogue, in the form of single-system temporal steering. However, a precise quantification of such temporal steering has been lacking. Here, we show that it can be measured, via semidefinite programing, with a temporal steerable weight, in direct analogy to the recently proposed EPR steerable weight. We find a useful property of the temporal steerable weight in that it is a nonincreasing function under completely positive trace-preserving maps and can be used to define a sufficient and practical measure of strong non-Markovianity.

Temporal steering inequality

Quantum steering is the ability to remotely prepare different quantum states by using entangled pairs as a resource. Very recently, the concept of steering has been quantified with the use of inequalities, leading to substantial applications in quantum information and communication science. Here, we highlight that there exists a natural temporal analogue of the steering inequality when considering measurements on a single object at different times. We give non-trivial operational meaning to violations of this temporal inequality by showing that it is connected to the security bound in the BB84 protocol and thus may have applications in quantum communication.

Genuine High-Order Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Steering.

Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) steering demonstrates that two parties share entanglement even if the measurement devices of one party are untrusted. Here, going beyond this bipartite concept, we develop a novel formalism to explore a large class of EPR steering from generic multipartite quantum systems of arbitrarily high dimensionality and degrees of freedom, such as graph states and hyperentangled systems. All of these quantum characteristics of genuine high-order EPR steering can be efficiently certified with few measurement settings in experiments. We faithfully demonstrate for the first time such generality by experimentally showing genuine four-partite EPR steering and applications to universal one-way quantum computing. Our formalism provides a new insight into the intermediate type of genuine multipartite Bell nonlocality and potential applications to quantum information tasks and experiments in the presence of untrusted measurement devices.

Photoinduced fluorescence enhancement in colloidal CdSeTe∕ZnS core/shell quantum dots

Photoinduced fluorescence enhancement (PFE) in colloidal CdSeTe∕ZnS core/shell quantum dots (QDs) was investigated by monitoring ensemble fluorescence and single-QD fluorescence blinking behavior upon illumination. Ensemble fluorescence was increased in air and in vacuum with different enhanced factors. At the single-QD levels, fluorescence was also enhanced for some individual QDs. Relatively long on times, high quantum yields within the on times, and multilevel on states were found in fluorescence time traces. We suggest that the PFE origin from single-QD viewpoint is attributed to the contributions of surface passivation by photoinduced charged carriers and the formation of neutral core/charged shell QD states.

Effect of electron-phonon interaction on the impurity binding energy in a quantum wire

Abstract The effect of electron–optical phonon interaction on the hydrogenic impurity binding energy in a cylindrical quantum wire is studied. By using Landau and Pekar variational method, the Hamiltonian is separated into two parts which contain phonon variable and electron variable, respectively. A perturbative-variational technique is then employed to construct the trial wave function for the electron part. The effect of confined electron–optical phonon interaction on the binding energies of the ground state and an excited state are calculated as a function of wire radius. Both the electron-bulk optical phonon and electron-surface optical phonon coupling are considered. It is found that the energy corrections of the polaron effects on the impurity binding energies increase rapidly as the wire radius is shrunk, and the bulk-type optical phonon plays the dominant role for the polaron effects.