Ingrid Fadelli is a writer for the website Phys.org.

A new method to enable efficient interactions between photons
Two photons propagating in a waveguide interacting with a single quantum emitter. The photon-photon interaction, which results in correlations. Credit: Le Jeannic et al.

New quantum technologies can be developed with the help of particles that represent a quantum of light. Physicists have been looking at the possibility of creating qubits that can be used to transmit information.

Despite some promising results, there are still many obstacles that need to be overcome before photonic qubits can be implemented on a large scale. photons are susceptible to propagation loss and do not interact with one another.

The lack of photon-photon interactions is one of the challenges that the researchers at the University of Copenhagen have devised a strategy to overcome. The development of more sophisticated quantum devices could be aided by their method.

"We have been working on the deterministic interface of single quantum emitters (quantum dots) to single photons for over 15 years and have developed a very powerful method based on nanophotonic waveguides", said one of the researchers. We usually applied these devices for single-photon sources and multi-photon sources, but there's a chance that they could be used to induce nonlinear operations.

The first proof of concept demonstration using individual photons was realized in 2015. Difficulties in understanding the fundamental physics underlying this complex interaction were encountered when they investigated it further.

The physics governing the nonlinear interaction of light was rich and gave rise to some novel opportunities for the construction of quantum gates and photon sorters. We have carried out the first experimental study of the interaction of quantum particles with each other.

In their new experiment, the researchers used a single quantum emitter with a single photon wave packet to conduct quantum interactions. They used a single quantum dot, a small particle that behaves like a two-level atom, to do this.

The quantum dot interacts with a photon in a system like that. Since only one photon at a time can interact with the quantum dot, sending in more than one photon causes quantum correlations. We can tailor the correlations by controlling the duration of the quantum pulse.

They were able to control a photon using a second photon using their quantum emitter. They were able to realize a photon-photon interaction.

A method to efficiently interact with each other was developed by the team. This could open new directions for making photon-photon quantum gates or deterministic photon sorter devices that are essential in quantum computing.

Implications for both quantum physics research and the development of quantum technology can be found in the new strategy introduced by this team of researchers. Their method could allow physicists to experiment with tailored quantum states while also opening new possibilities for the development of quantum optical devices.

One of the researchers involved in the study said they have a range of activities that extend the current work. Understanding how quantum states of light are affected by traveling through a single quantum dot is a fundamental issue. We are anticipating applications of this interaction.

They are trying to exploit the photon-photon interaction that was discovered in their recent study. It is possible to map the dynamics of complex molecule onto the propagation of photon in advanced circuits.

More information: Hanna Le Jeannic et al, Dynamical photon–photon interaction mediated by a quantum emitter, Nature Physics (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41567-022-01720-x

Nature Nanotechnology has a paper on quantum-dot-based deterministic photon–emitter interface.

A. Javadi et al have a single- photon non- linear optics with a quantum dot.

There is a science network.