DQC Seminar Series: Collecting Ion Fluorescence into Integrated Waveguides

ALTERNATE LOCATION: SUITE 550 CHESTERFIELD --- Abstract: Spontaneously emitted photons are entangled with the internal degrees of freedom of their emitting atoms; interfering and measuring these photons can therefore entangle spatially separated atoms as a resource for quantum information processing. Confinement in a single mode facilitates the photon interference needed to generate entanglement. Current demonstrations rely on bulk photon-collection and manipulation optics that suffer from mode-matching challenges and system-to-system variability-factors that impede scaling to the large numbers of entangled pairs needed for quantum information processing. To address these limitations, we demonstrate a collection method that enables passive phase stability, straightforward photonic manipulation, and intrinsic reproducibility. Specifically, we engineer a waveguide-integrated grating to couple photons emitted from a trapped ion into a single optical mode within a microfabricated ion-trap chip. We are now working toward collecting and interfering photons from separate ions in different zones of the chip to generate photon-mediated entanglement. This proof-of-principle demonstration could lay the foundation for leveraging the inherent stability and reproducibility of integrated photonics to create, manipulate, and measure multipartite quantum states in arrays of quantum emitters. Bio: I am a PhD student at MIT working with Prof. Isaac Chuang and Dr. John Chiaverini on integrated photonics for trapped ions. My first exposure to ion trapping was measuring isotope shifts in calcium ions with Prof. Charlie Doret during my bachelor's studies at Williams College. Before starting a PhD, I worked in the quantum-information side of the NIST Ion Storage Group for a year. Since starting graduate school, I have built a cryogenic ion trapping apparatus for integrated photonic traps and studied ion dynamics in a phase-stable polarization gradient, as well as integrated photon collection. Some of my favorite ion-related topics are photonics for structured light, quantum networks, and quantum computing architectures.