Osaka sent photons from 10 neutral atoms into 10 parallel optical-fibre channels
Osaka University, NICT and Hamamatsu Photonics coupled photons from 10 neutral atoms into 10 parallel channels of a 32 channel waveguide array and carried them over optical fibre to superconducting detectors. The peer reviewed result appears in Optica. The team reports expected correlations between each atom quantum state and photon polarisation. Takashi Yamamoto says the approach should scale to roughly 100 parallel channels. Tech Times writes a 25 micrometre pitch, a 780 nanometre wavelength and a visibility of 0.87.
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Osaka sent photons from 10 atoms into 10 of 32 channels
The University of Osaka, with NICT and Hamamatsu Photonics, coupled photons emitted by 10 neutral atoms spaced at micrometre intervals into 10 parallel channels of a 32-channel integrated waveguide array and carried them over optical fibre to multichannel superconducting detectors. Optica published the peer-reviewed result. The University of Osaka reports the expected correlations between each atom's quantum state and its photon's polarisation. Tech Times writes that the demonstration led by Takashi Yamamoto used 10 channels at once on a glass photonic integrated circuit.[1], [2]
Tech Times writes a 25 micrometre pitch, 780 nanometres and 0.87 visibility
Tech Times writes that the glass chip's 32-waveguide array was fabricated at a 25 micrometre channel pitch, that rubidium emits at 780 nanometres, and that silicon would absorb that wavelength. Tech Times says the atoms sit at 7.5 micrometre spacings in the tweezer plane, mapped onto the 25 micrometre pitch through an objective of numerical aperture 0.7. Tech Times writes that the photons reached a 12-channel superconducting nanostrip detector co-developed by NICT and Hamamatsu Photonics, with detection efficiencies from 75–94 per cent per channel and atom-photon polarisation correlation confirmed at a visibility of 0.87. Tech Times puts standard optical fibre arrays at roughly 127 micrometre pitch.[2]
Takashi Yamamoto ties the approach to about 100 channels while Osaka has not shown a network
Takashi Yamamoto says the waveguide approach should scale to roughly 100 parallel channels. The University of Osaka writes that interfaces of this kind have generally handled atoms one at a time. The University of Osaka says the experiment shows parallel photon collection with the state correlations preserved, and that entanglement between remote atoms, error rates and repetition rates remain to be shown at this scale. Tech Times writes that coupling efficiencies match prior fibre experiments and that Yamamoto said the group achieved the first demonstration of a multiplexed optical interface spanning atom arrays to the detector system.[1], [2]
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