Chia-Yu Hsu E-mail: chia-yu.hsu@physik.tu-darmstadt.de Phone: +49-6151-16-20745 Institution: Technical University of Darmstadt supervisor: Thomas Halfmann, Thorsten Peters

 

Project Title: Photon-photon interface with stationary light pulses (SLPs) in a hollow-core fibre (WP3)

The aim of the task is to enable nonlinear optics in a cold atomic ensemble of high optical depth beyond 1000, as it is was recently demonstrated by the team at TUDA. The huge optical depth serves to permit strong photon-photon interactions. We will develop, implement, and systematically investigate appropriately designed multi-level couplings in a cold atomic ensemble provided at large optical depth in a hollow-core photonic bandgap fibre. This will enable nonlinear photon-photon interactions, e.g., as required to implement a transistor-like optical switch at the single photon level. The latter exhibits a basic component of an optical quantum information processor.
The co-supervisor at TCPA will support the experimental investigations by know-how transfer and calculations of optimized pulse sequences to coherently drive multi-level schemes. The ESR will be trained about these techniques during the secondment at TCPA.

Expected Results: The project will lead to a fibre-based photon-photon interface to perform nonlinear optics at the few-photon level. One of the first applications will be a single-photon quantum filter which transmits single-photon states, while completely absorbing multi-photon states, i.e., a device required for quantum information processing. Hence, the concept is expected to trigger a large impact.

 

TUDA = Technical University of Darmstadt
TCPA = Foundation for Theoretical and Computational Physics and Astrophysics