Synchronized Pulses in Optical Cavities for Quantum optics and quantum information systems – SPOCQ

Quantum information science (QIS) is a research field that offers new insights and capabilities in communication and processing of information via the coherent manipulation of quantum systems. If this relatively new field has already proved its potential through many proofs of principle, we are still far from fully exploiting all the opportunities opened by QIS: progress are still needed towards higher rates, higher fidelities, and for the mastering of complex quantum states and complex quantum operations.
In this framework, quantum optics offers many advantages for a lot of applications, including quantum metrology and quantum computing. For instance, one can efficiently implement quantum computing with linear optics provided that information is coded on coherent states, and provided that Schrödinger cat states, a basic resource for these protocols, can be efficiently generated. The proposed project has for main objective the design of new tools for quantum optics and quantum information systems in order to open up the way to next generation quantum demonstrations. Synchronous optical cavities operated in the pulsed regime will thus be developed for different key and complementary purposes:
- On the one hand, such optical systems permit enhancing the pump beam in non-linear interactions like second harmonic generation, or like squeezed states or photon pairs generation; this will notably allow to produce multimode squeezed light and time squeezed states, finding applications in quantum metrology;
- On the other hand, they stand as simple but efficient quantum memory devices for storing light pulses and subsequently implementing iterative quantum protocols. They can thus be used as efficient tools for producing efficiently Schrödinger cat states.
These new tools will open new perspectives in the field of QIS, by the delivery of major technological breakthrough providing access to experimental demonstration to concepts still in the realm of theory.

The SPOCQ project brings together the “Quantum Optics” group of the Laboratoire Charles Fabry (partner 1, LCF, coordinator), the “Quantum Optics” group of the Laboratoire Kastler Brossel (partner 2, LKB), and the “Quantum Information with Light & Matter” (QILM) team of the Laboratoire de Physique de la Matière Condensée (partner 3, LPMC). The LCF group performed the first free space generation of “optical Schrödinger cat states”, and has a long experience on quantum optics in the pulsed regime. The LKB group has been the first to develop synchronous cavities for quantum optics purposes, and the LPMC group has a leading experience on high-rate photon sources. This very complementary expertise of the three groups will be an asset for the success of this project. This proposal is both beyond the state-of-the-art and within the current skills of the partners.