Kumar, S., Chan, C. W. I., Hu, Q., & Reno, J. L. (2011). A 1.8-THz quantum cascade laser operating significantly above the temperature of hw/k. Nature Physics, 7, 166–171.
Abstract: Several competing technologies continue to advance the field of terahertz science; of particular importance has been the development of a terahertz semiconductor quantum cascade laser (QCL), which is arguably the only solid-state terahertz source with average optical power levels of much greater than a milliwatt. Terahertz QCLs are required to be cryogenically cooled and improvement of their temperature performance is the single most important research goal in the field. Thus far, their maximum operating temperature has been empirically limited to ~planckω/kB, a largely inexplicable trend that has bred speculation that a room-temperature terahertz QCL may not be possible in materials used at present. Here, we argue that this behaviour is an indirect consequence of the resonant-tunnelling injection mechanism employed in all previously reported terahertz QCLs. We demonstrate a new scattering-assisted injection scheme to surpass this limit for a 1.8-THz QCL that operates up to ~1.9planckω/kB (163 K). Peak optical power in excess of 2 mW was detected from the laser at 155 K. This development should make QCL technology attractive for applications below 2 THz, and initiate new design strategies for realizing a room-temperature terahertz semiconductor laser.
|
Zhang, Q., Goebel, A., Wagenknecht, C., Chen, Y. - A., Zhao, B., Yang, T., et al. (2006). Experimental quantum teleportation of a two-qubit composite system. Nat. Phys., 2(10), 678–682.
Abstract: Quantum teleportation, a way to transfer the state of a quantum system from one location to another, is central to quantum communication and plays an important role in a number of quantum computation protocols. Previous experimental demonstrations have been implemented with single photonic or ionic qubits. However, teleportation of single qubits is insufficient for a large-scale realization of quantum communication and computation. Here, we present the experimental realization of quantum teleportation of a two-qubit composite system. In the experiment, we develop and exploit a six-photon interferometer to teleport an arbitrary polarization state of two photons. The observed teleportation fidelities for different initial states are all well beyond the state estimation limit of 0.40 for a two-qubit system. Not only does our six-photon interferometer provide an important step towards teleportation of a complex system, it will also enable future experimental investigations on a number of fundamental quantum communication and computation protocols
|
Lu, C. - Y., Zhou, X. - Q., Gühne, O., Gao, W. - B., Zhang, J., Yuan, Z. - S., et al. (2007). Experimental entanglement of six photons in graph states. Nat. Phys., 3(2), 91–95.
Abstract: Graph states-multipartite entangled states that can be represented by mathematical graphs-are important resources for quantum computation, quantum error correction, studies of multiparticle entanglement and fundamental tests of non-locality and decoherence. Here, we demonstrate the experimental entanglement of six photons and engineering of multiqubit graph states. We have created two important examples of graph states, a six-photon Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger state, the largest photonic Schrödinger cat so far, and a six-photon cluster state, a state-of-the-art `one-way quantum computer'. With small modifications, our method allows us, in principle, to create various further graph states, and therefore could open the way to experimental tests of, for example, quantum algorithms or loss- and fault-tolerant one-way quantum computation.
|
Ursin, R., Tiefenbacher, F., Schmitt-Manderbach, T., Weier, H., Scheidl, T., Lindenthal, M., et al. (2007). Entanglement-based quantum communication over 144km. Nat. Phys., 3(7), 481–486.
Abstract: Quantum entanglement is the main resource to endow the field of quantum information processing with powers that exceed those of classical communication and computation. In view of applications such as quantum cryptography or quantum teleportation, extension of quantum-entanglement-based protocols to global distances is of considerable practical interest. Here we experimentally demonstrate entanglement-based quantum key distribution over 144km. One photon is measured locally at the Canary Island of La Palma, whereas the other is sent over an optical free-space link to Tenerife, where the Optical Ground Station of the European Space Agency acts as the receiver. This exceeds previous free-space experiments by more than an order of magnitude in distance, and is an essential step towards future satellite-based quantum communication and experimental tests on quantum physics in space.
|
Pirandola, S., Mancini, S., Lloyd, S., & Braunstein, S. L. (2008). Continuous-variable quantum cryptography using two-way quantum communication. Nat. Phys., 4(9), 726–730.
Abstract: Quantum cryptography has recently been extended to continuous-variable systems, such as the bosonic modes of the electromagnetic field possessing continuous degrees of freedom. In particular, several cryptographic protocols have been proposed and experimentally implemented using bosonic modes with Gaussian statistics. These protocols have shown the possibility of reaching very high secret key rates, even in the presence of strong losses in the quantum communication channel. Despite this robustness to loss, their security can be affected by more general attacks where extra Gaussian noise is introduced by the eavesdropper. Here, we show a `hardware solution' for enhancing the security thresholds of these protocols. This is possible by extending them to two-way quantum communication where subsequent uses of the quantum channel are suitably combined. In the resulting two-way schemes, one of the honest parties assists the secret encoding of the other, with the chance of a non-trivial superadditive enhancement of the security thresholds. These results should enable the extension of quantum cryptography to more complex quantum communications.
|
