ERC starting grant received by researcher in the field of quantum light sources

A quantum computer is predicted to efficiently solve many tasks which are intractable on a classical computer. For instance, the problems within quantum chemistry to design better drugs against dangerous viruses like Covid-19, or big and secure data processing, e.g., machine learning and cryptography, can be performed more efficiently and more securely using the power of quantum computing. With the TuneTMD project, Munkhbat will develop chip-scale, fully integrated quantum photonic circuits, which could be one of the most promising platforms for future optical quantum computing.

“The impact of the project is, of course, enabling science and technology through new devices and techniques as well as new physics by overcoming the main challenge of generating highly indistinguishable single-photons from TMD sources”, Munkhbat says about the project. The major breakthrough is novel, fully integrated quantum photonic circuits integrating all the building blocks on a single chip efficiently. Being able to perform challenging quantum interference experiments with many separate and tunable sources is groundbreaking. This enables future boson sampling and scalable optical quantum information processing.

In optical quantum computing, qubits are encoded on single indistinguishable photons emitted by single-photon sources (SPSs). The computation is carried out by interfering single-photons and by measuring the output using single-photon detectors. A scalable optical quantum computer requires many individual SPSs emitting indistinguishable single photons; however, different SPSs emit light at slightly different wavelengths due to fabrication imperfections. This issue can be resolved by implementing individual tuning for each SPS to ensure the generation of completely identical photons. However, active control of individual SPSs still remains one of the biggest challenges in future quantum technologies.

Moreover, a vision within scalable quantum information processing is to develop a fully integrated on-chip quantum photonic circuit by integrating the fundamental building blocks, e.g., sources, beamsplitters, and detectors. Today the main challenge is developing a chip-scale platform where all building blocks are integrated efficiently on a chip with state-of-the-art performances.The TuneTMD project aims to develop a tunable and fully integrated photonic circuit using only nanoengineered transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) and perform quantum interference experiments on-chip. In this project, Munkhbat will develop individual photonic devices, e.g., source, waveguide, beamsplitter, and detectors. Then he will integrate them on a chip to construct fully integrated quantum optical circuits. Finally, to demonstrate the groundbreaking nature of the proposed platform, Munkhbat will perform on-chip quantum interference experiments with two tunable sources. Reaching this final goal will advance the state-of-the-art in optical quantum information processing. 

Read more about the research from QLIGHT