Single-Photon Generation and Detection

Alan Migdall leads the Quantum Optics Group at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), whose mission is the study and use of nonclassical light sources and detectors for application in absolute metrology, quantum enabled measurements, quantum information, and tests of fundamental physics. He and his group are also engaged in efforts aimed at advancing single-photon source, detector, and processing technologies for these applications. Migdall is a Fellow of the Joint Quantum Institute, a joint institute of the University of Maryland and NIST. Migdall is also a fellow of the American Physical Society and an adjunct professor at the University of Maryland. While he has a long list of publications, recent highlights of his work include the experimental demonstration of a coherent receiver with error rates below the standard quantum limit to a degree far exceeding any previous efforts, demonstration of topologically robust photonic states in an integrated Silicon photonics waveguide chip, tests of nonlocal realism alternatives to quantum mechanics using entangled two-photon light. Other work has involved the development of single photon light sources and the use of two-photon light for absolute measurements of the detection efficiency of single-photon detectors and verifying those results to the highest accuracy yet achieved. Another application in radiometry used two-photon light to determine spectral radiance in the infrared without requiring a calibrated detector or even one sensitive to the infrared. As a postdoctoral fellow at the National Bureau of Standards, as the field of laser cooling and trapping was getting off the ground, he was part of the team that achieved the first trapping of a neutral atom.

Sergey V. Polyakov is a physicist in Quantum Measurement Division at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), whose mission is the study and use of quantum light sources and single-photon detectors for advancing novel, quantum-enabled measurements, quantum information, and tests of fundamental physics. Recently, Sergey has developed new characterization techniques for classical and non-classical light sources, which were successfully applied for an in-depth analysis of a range of optical sources: from quantum dots to parametric down-conversion single-photon sources, to faint lasers and thermal sources. He demonstrated indistinguishability of single photons generated by single photon sources of different nature. He also holds an accuracy record in comparing absolute calibrations of single-photon detectors using a quantum two-photon method and a more traditional radiant-power measurement and detector substitution method. As a postdoctoral fellow of California Institute of Technology, he contributed in development of early ensemble-based sources of single photons, and he co-authored first demonstration of entanglement in remote atomic ensembles, published by Nature.

Jingyun Fan is a physicist affiliated with the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the Joint Quantum Institute of University of Maryland. He contributed to the early development of fiber-based photonic entanglement, which is now a standard tool as an alternative to spontaneous parametric down-conversion for quantum information processing tasks. His contributions to spontaneous parametric down-conversion include achieving a collection efficiency for a two-photon pair source that for the first time exceeds the threshold needed for a loop-hole free test of Bell’s inequality. His recent work in the field of quantum measurement science involves the demonstration of a number of strategically designed quantum measurement protocols that bridge the gap between quantum communication and coherent optical communication for the first time. His most recent work explores the interaction of light in complex photonic systems as a way to simulate a range of physical phenomena not easily accessible through other means.

Joshua C. Bienfang is a member of the Quantum Optics Group at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), whose mission is the study non-classical light and detectors for use in absolute metrology, quantum-enabled measurements, quantum information, and tests of fundamental physics. Josh’s recent work in single-photon detection systems has resulted in unprecedented efficiency and noise performance in fast gated detectors, and advances in fast quenching of Si devices to reduce afterpulsing. As an NRC post-doc, Josh conducted some of the earliest investigations of high-speed free-space quantum key distribution and demonstrated a scalable system with orders-of-magnitude improvement in speed over prior techniques. As a graduate student at the University of New Mexico, Josh studied laser frequency stabilization and nonlinear optics, and built a 20 W sodium-guidestar source for adaptive optics systems, the first high-power continuous-wave source of this kind.