Penn Engineering groups receive NSF grants to work on "Quantum Leap"

The National Science Foundation has awarded two of the eight National Science and Engineering Interdisciplinary Science Fellowships (RAISE) to teams from the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences for their science research project. quantum information.

RAISE Quantum's Integrated Quantum Platform (EQuIP) Grants are designed to advance the science of quantum information, which aims to harness the quantum mechanical properties inherent in light and matter for new technologies. The EQuIP program focuses particularly on quantum communication, which explores how information can be condensed, sent and stored. In 2016, the NSF unveiled the "Quantum Leap" as one of the great ideas at the forefront of science and engineering, and these projects aim to materialize these ideas.

A team led by Lee Bassett, an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Systems, will examine how the impurity atoms of a diamond can be used as a platform for quantum communication. The objective is to develop compact devices at the scale of chips that function as small quantum computers coupled to single photons in optical fibers, which can serve as a basis for a quantum internet future.

"This collaborative project includes our group, Penn's Quantum Engineering Lab, where we focus on understanding atomic and subatomic materials, as well as engineering devices for a variety of quantum technologies, including quantum communication and calculation ". Bassett says. "Our project focuses on controlling things such as quantum entanglement and quantum overlays in semiconductor devices. Historically, defects are a problem in semiconductor devices because materials are never as pure as we would have liked. But some of these defects have quantum properties.

Diamond is an attractive material for quantum engineering because its insulating properties create an environment of aspiration. Although a diamond is normally composed entirely of carbon atoms, a different atom sometimes replaces one of the carbon atoms. These impurities act as atoms or trapped molecules and can interact with light. In fact, atomic defects are responsible for the different colors of most gemstones.

According to Bassett, some of these defects have remarkable quantum mechanical properties that can be controlled with the help of light and electronics, even at room temperature. "The interaction of the defect with the light allows us to control the spin state of its electrons," he explains. Spin, or kinetic momentum, is a quantum mechanical property of all elementary particles. "We can then use the spin of electrons to read and write quantum information into a group of carbon cores, which act like memory elements in a small quantum computer."

The team includes members of the Electronic Photonic Microsystems Lab led by Firooz Alfatouni, Assistant Professor of Electrical and Engineering Systems at Skirkanich, which focuses on the design of integrated electronic circuits for quantum devices, as well 39, a Brown University group led by Rashid Zia. , expert in nanophotonics, study of light at the nanoscale. The team will also collaborate with Tim Taminiau and his group at QuTECH at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands.

"Our overall goal is to surge the performance and integrated design of quantum devices," says Bassett. "There have been many proof-of-concept demonstrations of different quantum technologies. However, most systems are the size of a research laboratory, which is obviously not scalable for an application such as the quantum Internet.

With this grant and the three areas of expertise of the team, they plan to design and build fiber coupling devices with diamond defects that will perform even better than advanced laboratory systems. Cost.

Likewise, the other team receiving a RAISE-EQuIP grant is led by Ritesh Agarwal, professor of materials science and engineering Penn and Liang Feng, assistant professor of materials science and engineering and engineering. electrical engineering and systems. With Stefan Strauf, professor of physics at the Stevens Institute of Technology and expert in quantum signal generation, they will advance quantum communication using advanced nanophotonic technology, providing ground-breaking quantum circuits that generate and process quantum signals via a single photon.

"My group produced the first on-chip source for twisted photons and [Agarwal’s] produced the first on-chip twisted photon detector, "says Feng. "With this level of combined expertise, I would say our team will be the first to produce integrated quantum systems based on on-chip twisted photons from the source side to the detector side." We want to be the first to provide this product for quantum communication and information processing. "

The quantum signals carried by the single photon with properties designed in a symmetry perspective can follow a unique torsion configuration on the source side, before the information is sent to the receiver on the detector side. The team has already developed new integrated quantum photonic platforms that follow a twisted scheme, enabling a highly scalable technique that allows the sending, receiving and processing of large amounts of information. . Twists act as independent information channels, forming a new dimension of information essential to the demonstration of larger quantum systems, which not only increases the information capacity, but also the level of security against piracy.

According to Mr. Agarwal, sending data via a single photon significantly improves the security of information sent by impulse. "If someone sends millions of photons in an impulse and that a pirate flies 20, you may not notice, but if I send you information via single-photon impulses, you'll certainly know if someone tries to hack him. Twists on our single-photon pulses can help achieve the ultimate security of quantum communication.

"The proof of concept is there," adds Agarwal. "But there is still work to be done, which of course explains why we asked for this grant. This will help our eventual success. We are not only reducing the size, we are reducing costs. It is our dream to make this technology accessible to everyone. "

The RAISE-EQuIP grants provide $ 750,000 to each group over the next three years. Both teams plan to integrate undergraduate and graduate students into cutting-edge research and will participate in outreach programs to facilitate the interest in quantum information science. students in kindergarten to grade 12.

Ritesh Agarwal is professor of science and materials engineering at the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Sciences of the University of Pennsylvania.

Firooz Alfatouni is the Skirkanich Assistant Professor of Electrical and Engineering Systems at the School of Engineering and Applied Science of the University of Pennsylvania.

Lee Bassett is Assistant Professor of Electrical and Engineering Systems at the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science of the University of Pennsylvania.

Liang Feng is an Assistant Professor in Materials Science and Electrical Engineering and Systems and Engineering at the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science of the University of Pennsylvania.