Holds Promise for Future Quantum Networks and Light Sources
December 05, 2013
Lynn Yarris (510) 486-5375 lcyarris@lbl.gov
The Information Age will get a major upgrade with the arrival of quantum processors many times faster and more powerful than today’s supercomputers. For the benefits of this new Information Age 2.0 to be fully realized, however, quantum computers will need fast and efficient multi-directional light sources. While quantum technologies remain grist for science fiction, a team of researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have taken an important step towards efficient light generation, the foundation for future quantum networks.
In this graphic showing four-wave mixing in a positive/negative-index (upper) and zero-index (lower) metamaterial, forward-propagating FWM is much stronger than backward FWM for the positive/negative-index material but about the same in both directions for the zero-index metamaterial. (Image courtesy of Zhang group)
In a study led by Xiang Zhang, a faculty scientist with Berkeley Lab’s Materials Sciences Division, the research team used a unique optical metamaterial with a refractive index of zero to generate phase mismatch–free nonlinear light, meaning the generated light waves move through the material gaining strength in all directions. This phase mismatch-free quality holds promise for quantum computing and networking, and future light sources based on nonlinear optics – the phenomena that occur when interactions with light modify a material’s properties.
“In our demonstration of nonlinear dynamics in an optical metamaterial with zero-index refraction, equal amounts of nonlinearly generated waves are observed in both forward and backward propagation directions,” says Zhang. “The removal of phase matching in nonlinear optical metamaterials may lead to applications such as efficient multidirectional light emissions for novel light sources and the generation of entangled photons for quantum networking.”
Zhang is the corresponding author of a paper in Science that describes this research. The paper is titled Phase Mismatch–Free Nonlinear Propagation in Optical Zero-Index Materials. Co-authors are Haim Suchowski, Kevin O’Brien, Zi Jing Wong, Alessandro Salandrino and Xiaobo Yin.
From left Xiang Zhang, Haim Suchowski, Zi Jing Wong, Kevin O’Brien and Alessandro Salandrino have created a nonlinear light-generating zero-index metamaterial that holds promise for future quantum networks and light sources. (Photo by Roy Kaltschmidt)
Zhang, who holds the Ernest S. Kuh Endowed Chair Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of California (UC) Berkeley, where he also directs the National Science Foundation’s Nano-scale Science and Engineering Center, is one of the world’s foremost authorities in metamaterials research.
See the full article here.
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