Boston Chapter of the IEEE Photonics Society

Abstract:  In quantum communications, the emerging fields of quantum key distribution, quantum teleportation, and imaging require a new set of quantum enabling tools for the generation, storage, manipulation, and detection of photonic qubits.  In this talk, I will describe the production of high-flux entangled photons by means of spontaneous parametric downconversion (SPDC) in a nonlinear material.  SPDC provides a source of maximally-entangled Gaussian states that, for short detection intervals, can be approximated by a predominant vacuum component plus a weak biphoton.  Performance metrics for evaluating biphoton generation techniques will be described.  Near-unity frequency conversion can be utilized to facilitate entanglement storage in wavelength-specific trapped atomic quantum memories or to allow efficient single-photon detection using silicon single-photon counters.  One can consider a single photon as a carrier of multiple qubits, such as polarization and momentum, and the resulting single-photon two-qubit quantum logic can be used for physical simulation of interesting quantum algorithms.  An example of its use in an eavesdropping attack on quantum key distribution will be presented.

Examples of using Gaussian-state entanglement to do imaging will also be discussed.

Biography:  Dr. Franco N.C. Wong is a principal investigator in the Research Laboratory of Electronics (RLE) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He received inthe B.A. in physics and B.S. in mechanical engineering from the University of Rochester in 1977, and the M.S. and Ph.D. in applied physics from Stanford University in 1979 and 1983 respectively. He joined RLE in 1986 as Research Scientist, and was promoted to Principal Research Scientist in 1998 and Senior Research Scientist in 2003.

Dr. Wong carries out studies in quantum and nonlinear optics. His research includes the application of optical parametric oscillators to squeezed states of light, high-precision optical frequency division, and wide-band optical communications.