Baumert, T. (2011). Quantum technology: Wave packets get a kick. Nat. Phys., 7(5), 373–374.
Abstract: Intense femtosecond pulses of infrared light can manipulate molecules. It is now shown that such control even extends to making different molecular eigenstates interfere with each other in a way never considered before -- a potential tool for optically engineered chemical reactions and for ultrafast information encoding and manipulation.
|
Beck, M., Klammer, M., Lang, S., Leiderer, P., Kabanov, V. V., Gol'tsman, G. N., et al. (2011). Energy-gap dynamics of superconducting NbN thin films studied by time-resolved terahertz spectroscopy. Phys. Rev. Lett., 107(17), 4.
Abstract: Using time-domain terahertz spectroscopy we performed direct studies of the photoinduced suppression and recovery of the superconducting gap in a conventional BCS superconductor NbN. Both processes are found to be strongly temperature and excitation density dependent. The analysis of the data with the established phenomenological Rothwarf-Taylor model enabled us to determine the bare quasiparticle recombination rate, the Cooper pair-breaking rate and the electron-phonon coupling constant, λ=1.1±0.1, which is in excellent agreement with theoretical estimates.
|
Beck, M., Klammer, M., Lang, S., Leiderer, P., Kabanov, V. V., Gol’tsman, G. N., et al. (2011). Energy-gap dynamics of superconducting NbN thin films studied by time-resolved terahertz spectroscopy. arXiv:1102.5616v2 [cond-mat.supr-con].
Abstract: Using time-domain Terahertz spectroscopy we performed direct studies of the photoinduced suppression and recovery of the superconducting gap in a conventional BCS superconductor NbN. Both processes are found to be strongly temperature and excitation density dependent. The analysis of the data with the established phenomenological Rothwarf-Taylor model enabled us to determine the bare quasiparticle recombination rate, the Cooper pair-breaking rate and the electron-phonon coupling constant, \lambda = 1.1 +/- 0.1, which is in excellent agreement with theoretical estimates.
|
Belitsky, V., Desmaris, V., Dochev, D., Meledin, D., & Pavolotsky, A. (2011). Towards Multi-Pixel Heterodyne Terahertz Receivers. In Proc. 22th Int. Symp. Space Terahertz Technol..
Abstract: Terahertz multi-pixel heterodyne receivers introduce multiple challenges for their implementation, mostly due to the extremely small dimensions of all components and even smaller tolerances in terms of alignment, linear dimensions and waveguide component surface quality. In this manuscript, we present a concept of terahertz multi-pixel heterodyne receiver employing optical layout using polarization split between the LO and RF. The frontend isbased on a waveguide balanced HEB mixer for the frequency band 1.6 – 2.0 THz. The balanced HEB mixer followsthe layout of earlier demonstrated APEX T2 mixer. However for the mixer presented here, we implemented split-block layout offering inimized lengths of all waveguides and thus reducing the associated RF loss. The micromachining methods employed for producing the mixer housing and the HEB mixer chip are very suitable for producing multiple structures and hence are in-line with requirements of multi-pixel receiver technology. The demonstrated relatively simple mounting of the mixer chip with self-aligning should greatly facilitate the integration of such multi-channel receiver. Index Terms—Instrumentation, Multi-pixel, Terahertz, Waveguide Balanced Mixer.
|
Berlín, G., Brassard, G., Bussières, F., Godbout, N., Slater, J. A., & Tittel, W. (2011). Experimental loss-tolerant quantum coin flipping. Nat. Comm., 2(561), 7.
Abstract: Coin flipping is a cryptographic primitive in which two distrustful parties wish to generate a random bit to choose between two alternatives. This task is impossible to realize when it relies solely on the asynchronous exchange of classical bits: one dishonest player has complete control over the final outcome. It is only when coin flipping is supplemented with quantum communication that this problem can be alleviated, although partial bias remains. Unfortunately, practical systems are subject to loss of quantum data, which allows a cheater to force a bias that is complete or arbitrarily close to complete in all previous protocols and implementations. Here we report on the first experimental demonstration of a quantum coin-flipping protocol for which loss cannot be exploited to cheat better. By eliminating the problem of loss, which is unavoidable in any realistic setting, quantum coin flipping takes a significant step towards real-world applications of quantum communication.
|