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

This application is for two infrared photodetectors and associated electronics that together enable individual photon events to be ""time-tagged"" with better than 1 nanosecond time resolution. This type of detection system is required in order to characterize the statistics of the photons from samples that emit in the infrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. The applicants have several funded research projects related to the development of novel optical sources in the infrared, and the requested equipment is required in order to quantify the unique properties that characterize these new sources. One of the main goals of the research is to demonstrate sources of light that are fundamentally quantum mechanical in nature, and that can be integrated into optical circuits fabricated on silicon wafers. Such light sources will be important for future information technologies based on quantum mechanical principles (such as the perfectly secure exchange of information, and possibly one day, quantum computation). There is very little related infrastructure in Canada: NRC in Ottawa is the only laboratory that, to the applicants' knowledge, has similar equipment to that requested here. As such, this would represent an important investment in state-of-the-art photonic infrastructure in Canada.