April 11, 2019 -- Ultra-secure online communications, completely indecipherable if
intercepted, are a step closer with the help of a recently published discovery
by University of Oregon
Alemán, a member of the UO’s Center for Optical, Molecular, and Quantum
Science, has made artificial atoms that work in ambient conditions. The
research, published in the journal Nano Letters, could be a big step in efforts
to develop secure quantum communication networks and all-optical quantum
computing.
“The big breakthrough is that we’ve discovered a simple, scalable way to
nanofabricate artificial atoms onto a microchip, and that the artificial atoms
work in air and at room temperature,” said Alemán, also a member of the UO’s
Materials Science Institute.
“Our artificial atoms will enable lots of new and powerful technologies,”
he said. “In the future, they could be used for safer, more secure, totally
private communications, and much more powerful computers that could design
life-saving drugs and help scientists gain a deeper understanding of the
universe through quantum computation.”
Joshua Ziegler, a doctoral student researcher in Alemán’s lab, and
colleagues drilled holes — 500 nanometers wide and four nanometers deep — into
a thin two-dimensional sheet of hexagonal boron nitride, which is also known as
white graphene because of its white color and atomic thickness.
To drill the holes, the team used a process that resembles pressure-washing,
but instead of a water jet uses a focused beam of ions to etch circles into the
white graphene. They then heated the material in oxygen at high temperatures to
remove residues.
Using optical confocal microscopy, Ziegler next observed tiny spots of
light coming from the drilled regions. After analyzing the light with photon
counting techniques, he discovered that the individual bright spots were
emitting light at the lowest possible level — a single photon at a time.
These patterned bright spots are artificial atoms and they possess many of
the same properties of real atoms, like single photon emission.
With the success of the project, Alemán said, the UO is now ahead of the
pack in efforts to develop such materials in quantum research. And that puts a
smile on Alemán’s face.
When he joined the UO in 2013, he had planned to pursue the idea that
artificial atoms could be created in white graphene. However, before Alemán
could set his own research in motion, another university team identified artificial
atoms in flakes of white graphene.
Alemán then sought to build on that discovery. Fabricating the artificial
atoms is the first step towards harnessing them as sources of single particles
of light in quantum photonic circuits, he said.
“Our work provides a source of single photons that could act as
carriers of quantum information or as qubits. We’ve patterned these sources,
creating as many as we want, where we want,” Alemán said. “We’d like to pattern
these single photon emitters into circuits or networks on a microchip so they
can talk to each other, or to other existing qubits, like solid-state spins or
superconducting circuit qubits.”
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