The development of a network and a quantum internet will allow us to make an enormous leap forward from a technological point of view, guaranteeing unprecedented data transmission and calculation speed. A technology, unfortunately, not yet without its flaws, which the "Integrated Quantum Photonics" team is trying to solve.
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| Defect centers in diamond nanostructures can be used as quantum bits. Via quantum operations (entanglement), quantum information can be stored in emitted single photons and transmitted in optical fibers in the future quantum internet. Credit: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin |
In fact, in a quantum network, to allow data transmission over long distances with high communication speeds, all the photons must be collected in optical fibers and transmitted without losses . Furthermore, it must be ensured that these photons all have the same colour, i.e. the same frequency.
Unfortunately, until now meeting these requirements has always been impossible. For this reason, the researchers of the "Integrated Quantum Photonics" group , led by Prof. Tim Schröder of the Humboldt-Universität of Berlin, have tried to solve the problem by managing, for the first time in the world, to generate and detect photons with stable frequencies emitted from quantum light sources, thanks to diamond nanostructures.
To be even more precise, this was possible by carefully choosing the precious material of the diamond nanostructures, with the sophisticated nanofabrication methods performed at the Joint Lab Diamond Nanophotonics of the Ferdinand-Braun-Institut, Leibniz-Institut für Höchstfrequencytechnik.
Furthermore, using specific experimental control protocols, the noise of the electrons, which previously disturbed the transmission of data, has been considerably reduced, guaranteeing the photons emitted at a decidedly more stable (communication) frequency.
As if that were not enough, the Berlin researchers also demonstrated that current communication speeds between spatially separated quantum systems can be prospectively increased more than 1,000-fold with the help of these newly developed methods, marking a major step towards a Flawless quantum internet.
However, Dr Laura Orphal-Kobin, who studies quantum systems together with Prof. Schröder, added: 'Despite this important new research work, the exact physical processes will still have to be studied in more detail in the future.'
If you are curious to learn more about the subject, you will find the official document published on the pages of the well - known journal Physical Review X.
Reference:
Laura Orphal-Kobin et al, Optically Coherent Nitrogen-Vacancy Defect Centers in Diamond Nanostructures, Physical Review X (2023). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevX.13.011042