Grant: Research Tools and Instruments - Category 1 (<$150,000)

Quantum technologies bring the strange features of quantum mechanics to bear on some of the most important industries today. A computer operating by the rules of quantum mechanics could solve important problems, such as factoring large integers, much faster than any computer today. A communication system can use Heisenberg's uncertainty principle to hide information and establish an unbreakable cryptographic cipher. Optical systems, built on single particles of light called photons, have many crucial characteristics and are central to emerging quantum technologies. This RTI application requests funding for a high-powered, wavelength stabilized pulsed laser system which will be used as the engine to drive chirped-pulse nonlinear optics at the single-photon limit and produce entangled photon pairs designed to test a new quantum memory platform. Both streams of research require a high-brightness and high-quality source of polarization-entangled photon pairs. The requested laser system will allow us to press the development of our entangled photon source in both directions. The pulses from this laser system will be stretched, or ""chirped"", to extend the applicability of a photon bandwidth compression scheme that my group has pioneered to entangled photons. Preservation of entanglement through this process is essential for applications in quantum technologies. This technique serves as a coherent time-to-frequency interface for single photons with exciting potential applications in entanglement conversion, hybrid quantum systems, and ultrafast time-of-arrival measurements on single photons. This same entangled photon source will enable experimental tests of a new kind of quantum memory, a device capable of storing and retrieving quantum states, based on bulk diamond. The research plan will be carried out by graduate and undergraduate students and prepare them well for careers in academia or industrial R&D.