The quantum computers of tomorrow might use photons, or particles of light, to move around the data they need to make calculations, but photons are tricky to work with. Two new papers* by researchers working at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have brought science closer to creating reliable sources of photons for these long-heralded devices.
* G. Brida, I. P. Degiovanni1, M. Genovese, A. Migdall, F. Piacentini, S. V. Polyakov and I. Ruo Berchera. Experimental realization of a low-noise heralded single-photon source. Optics Express, Jan. 14, 2011, pp. 1470 – 1483. DOI: 133913.
J. Chen, Z.H. Levine, J. Fan and A.L. Migdall. Frequency-bin entangled comb of photon pairs from a Silicon-on-Insulator micro-resonator. Optics Express, Jan. 14, 2011, pp. 1484 – 1492. DOI: 133346.
