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Caltech

INQNET Seminar

Monday, February 11, 2019
12:30pm to 1:30pm
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Lauritsen 469
Direct characterization of ultrafast energy-time entangled photon pairs
Jean-Philippe Maclean, Institute for Quantum Computing (IQC), University of Waterloo, Canada,

Pizza Lunch Seminar

In the famous example suggested by Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen (EPR), two particles can be highly correlated in position and momentum. For photons, strong EPR-like correlations can also occur in the energy-time degree of freedom, that is, between the frequency and the time of arrival of the photons. This type of entanglement enables fundamentally quantum effects such as dispersion cancellation and clock synchronization. However, detection of this entanglement and observation of these effects can require ultrafast time resolution beyond the capabilities of current photon detectors. Thus, for operations on ultrafast timescales, more powerful and complex methods are required.

We use a nonlinear technique known as optical gating to surpass the limitations in current detectors and achieve subpicosecond time resolution for single photon pairs. Optical gating in conjunction with single photon spectrometers then enables us to measure both the spectral and temporal correlations of a two-photon state, allowing us to observe for the first time EPR correlation but in frequency and in time. The ability to characterize laser pulses on ultrafast timescales has been critical to innovations in laser physics, nonlinear optics, and spectroscopy, and we believe similar measurement capabilities will be critical in the quantum regime as well.http://indico.hep.caltech.edu/indico/conferenceDisplay.py?confId=465


INQNET (INtelligent Quantum NEtworks & Technologies, inqnet.caltech.edu) is a research program that aims to bring together academia, national laboratories, and industry to advance quantum science and technology and address relevant fundamental questions in physics.

For more information, please contact Nikolai Lauk by email at [email protected].