Another beautiful night ahead of us. We are going back for tonight’s artist. Way back. Way, way back.
Ladies and Gents they have arrived…
let’s get this party started.
Physicists Develop Record-Breaking Source for Single Photons
University of Basel | Jan. 28, 2021 | Phys.orgQuantum cryptography promises absolutely secure communications. A key component here are strings of single photons. Information can be stored in the quantum states of these light particles and transmitted over long distances. In the future, remote quantum processors will communicate with each other via single photons. And perhaps the processor itself will use photons as quantum bits for computing.
A basic prerequisite for such applications, however, is an efficient source of single photons. A research team led by Professor Richard Warburton, Natasha Tomm and Dr. Alisa Javadi from the University of Basel, together with colleagues from Bochum, now reports in the journal Nature Nanotechnology on the development of a single-photon source that significantly surpasses previously known systems in terms of efficiency.
“Funnel” guides light particles
Each photon is created by exciting a single “artificial atom” (a quantum dot) inside a semiconductor. Usually, these photons leave the quantum dot in all possible directions and thus a large fraction is lost. In the photon source now presented, the researchers have solved this problem by positioning the quantum dot inside a “funnel” to send all photons in a specific direction.
The funnel is a novel micro-cavity that represents the real innovation of the research team: The micro-cavity captures almost all of the photons and then directs them into an optical fiber. The photons, each about two centimeters long, emerge at the end of an optical fiber.
You heard it here first.
Sorry for the absence of the Babesleaga this week. As you may have seen there were growing irregularities in the spirit of voting just once in each contest. I believe we have found away to make that much, much harder to accomplish so we will resume the contests this coming Monday.
We will replay the previous week’s contests, hopefully with the problem being solved. Sorry for the inconvenience.