Manipulating Quantum Systems An Assessment of Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics in the United States (2020) / Chapter Skim
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2 Tools Made of Light
2 Tools Made of Light
Pages 35-64
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From page 35... ...
In 1960, the first demonstration of the laser by Theodore Maiman defined a transformational moment not only in science and engineering but also for society. What was special about laser light?
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of laser light. Intensity One measure of light is its intensity, a property defined as the power trans ferred per unit area.
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pushed intensity to a limit where the light caused catastrophic material damage thus clamping further gains as illustrated by the intensity plateau near 1970. In 1986, Mourou and Strickland circumvented this problem by the revolutionary technological concept of chirped pulse amplification (CPA; see Figure 2.2)
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From page 38... ...
The stretched chirped pulse is then amplified in a suitable laser gain medium to near damage threshold -- that is, in this example a 106-109 times in pulse energy. Last, a pair of gratings configured to introduce a positive GVD compresses the amplified pulse close to the original femtosecond pulse duration.
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Another advance closely related to intensity is the repetition rate for delivering the light pulses. In an experiment, the real time to accumulate a signal is a
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A standard commercial table-top CPA laser sys tem operating in the near-infrared (NIR) produces 1-25 W of average power at repetition rates spanning 0.1 to 1 kHz.
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The shorter the time duration of a pulse, the larger the uncertainty in its frequency content, or conversely, a laser with a well-defined frequency FIGURE 2.4 Natural phenomena cover a broad range of time scales. Using the human experience as a reference point, AMO scientists employing ultrafast laser pulses have pushed the precision of time to unprecedented limits.
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From page 42... ...
Laser pulse technology producing femtosecond durations are ideal probes of this mo lecular motion; pioneering work resulted in the 1999 Nobel Prize in Chemistry being awarded to the late Professor Ahmed Zewail. Femtosecond light pulses from lasers remain the routine ultrashort tool to this day, but in 2001 a watershed moment occurred in laboratories in Paris and Vienna, when the first formation of attosecond (1 as ≡ 10−18 s)
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Furthermore, proofof-principle experiments have demonstrated that the next-generation XFELs will have operational capabilities on the attosecond time scale. Frequency, Bandwidth, and Coherence The use of light across the electromagnetic spectrum is a foundational tool in modern-day AMO physics covering spectroscopy, cooling, clocks, ultrafast, metrology, and imaging.
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In laser science, the control of optical phases is paramount. In the spectral domain, continuous wave lasers are providing dramatically enhanced resolving power to see ever finer energy structures of matter.
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In an alternative direction, pulse shaping has impacted quantum optics. Although originally developed for manipulation of coherent ultrashort light pulses, it is equally applicable for spectral phase and amplitude filtering of any broadband optical signal.
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Quantum information applications include generation of high-dimensional units such as qudits, which can carry multiple qubits per photon, robust transmission over fiber, frequency parallelism and routing, compatibility with on-chip microresonator sources, and potential for hyperentanglement with other photonic degrees of freedom such as different spatial or angular momentum modes. Spatial Manipulation Recently novel ways to spatially manipulate light have emerged, largely based on ideas drawn from solid-state phenomena.
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From page 47... ...
While it has been known for more than half a century that light fields can interact with each other inside nonlinear optical media, at light powers corresponding to individual photons the nonlinearity of conventional materials is completely negligible. Remarkable advances in quantum optics over the past decade have recently culminated in experimental demonstrations of several methods to generate optical nonlinearities at the level of individual photons.
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From page 48... ...
On one hand, the realization of quantum nonlinear optics could improve the performance of classical nonlin ear devices, enabling -- for example, fast energy-efficient optical transistors that avoid Ohmic heating. On the other hand, nonlinear switches activated by single photons could enable optical quantum information processing and communica tion, as well as other applications that rely on the generation and manipulation of nonclassical light fields.
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Systems exhibiting strong photon-photon interactions are currently being explored to enable unique applications such as quantum-by-quantum control of photon states, single-photon switches and transistors, all-optical deterministic quantum logic, the realization of quantum networks for long-distance quantum communication, and the exploration of novel strongly correlated states of light and matter. Some of these exciting new developments are discussed in subsequent chapters of this report.
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Recent experiments show that atom-like systems may enable far-reaching control over quantum states, with applications ranging from information processing and quantum communication to biological sensing. The nitrogen-vacancy (NV)
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can now be realized, due to the recent development of photonic platforms that can transmit light confined to submicron-size waveguides, over very long distances with low optical losses. The field of integrated optics and in particular silicon photonics is rapidly evolving and is now enabling completely new applications, ranging from Lidar to quantum platforms.
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As an example of the power of integrated optics for nonlinear optics, micro resonator Kerr combs have been demonstrated in a variety of platforms, including in a silicon platform that is fully compatible with standard microelectronic process ing platforms. Their spectral coverage extends to the visible and mid-infrared, and repetition rates in the microwave regimes have been achieved.
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There is an urgent need for optical materials that are widely tunable to enable light generation, manipulation, processing, and detection on a single platform. Current integrated optics platforms fall short.
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Integration of 2D materials with integrated optic platforms will transform the field of integrated optics and revolutionize communications, sensing, signal processing, and quantum information science, all important topics in AMO. It will enable integrated optics in three dimensions, where multiple photonic layers, each with its own sources, detectors, modulators, and sensors, can be monolithically integrated into a single electronic-photonic chip.
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On the more applied side, OM coupling on mass scales ranging from nanogram to gram have been deployed to create the tools of quantum information such as quantum memories for information storage and so-called hybrid systems for information transport. Other applications include quantum sensing of forces, displacements, spins, magnetic fields -- for example, OM has also been used to create exotic quantum states of light -- for example, squeezed light -- and of mechanical motion -- for example, phonon Fock states.
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Figure 2.7 is a typical table-top setup for performing attosecond photoionization experiments. The principles of generating trains or isolated attosecond pulses are similar, and require only different shaping of the fundamental field.
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Ultrafast X-ray Metrology Since the beginning of the 21st century, our ability to measure light pulses has achieved a high degree of sophistication. Using the "zoo" of existing optical pulse characterization techniques, such as FROG, TADPOLE, and SPIDER,6 researchers can precisely measure the spectral amplitude and phase of complex ultrafast light pulses.
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These include the search for and use of exceedingly high-quality atomic transitions in the visible regime, quantum state engineering of single trapped ions and of many-atom systems in specially designed optical lattices, the development of ultrastable lasers, and the invention of optical frequency combs. Precise control of optical phases is a dominant theme in laser science.
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Through the powerful tool of optical frequency combs that unite stable optical phase control and ultrafast science, unprecedented spectral resolving power has been established across the entire visible spectrum and beyond. Precise quantum state engineering of individual atoms has led to extraordinary measurement performance.
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From page 60... ...
have emerged and are being elucidated through the quest of building a better atomic clock, for example, tests of fundamental physics, the development of sensors of increasing sensitivity, the probe of quantum many-body physics, and the search for new physics beyond the standard model. Light Propagation: Sensing and Control The highly directional character of laser beams makes them ideal for remote (long distance)
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While initially developed for frequency metrology, frequency combs have become a powerful tool for new approaches to broadband molecular spectroscopy. The broad coherent spectrum of sharp comb lines permits novel approaches to linear and nonlinear spectroscopy that often outperforms other state-of-the-art techniques with respect to resolution, accuracy, recording time, and sensitivity.
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From page 62... ...
The light's high temporal and spatial coherence makes it possible to produce waveforms that span the infrared, visible, ultraviolet, and even soft X-ray spectral regions. In the spectral domain, continuous wave lasers are providing dramatically enhanced resolving power to see ever finer energy structures of matter.
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New platforms are emerging in quantum information science, remote sensing, and clocking ultrafast electron dynamics in all phases of matter. Thus, the frontiers lie at the interdisciplinary intersection of physics, engineering, chemistry, materials science, and biology.
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Finding: Systems exhibiting strong photon-photon interactions are currently being explored, to enable unique applications such as quantum-by-quantum control of light fields, single-photon switches and transistors, all-optical deter ministic quantum logic, the realization of quantum networks for long-distance quantum communication, and the exploration of novel strongly correlated states of light and matter. Finding: As nanofabrication technologies and the availability of high optical quality, low thermal dissipation materials improve, design and control of the mechanical oscillators will get more sophisticated.
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