DARPA has created a quantum laser that can penetrate fog and remain efficient even at extended ranges.

Laser technologies used in communications and other activities can be affected by certain conditions like fogginess, extremely hot or cold temperatures or exceptionally large distances. A professor of engineering at Washington University in St. Louis’s McKelvey School of Engineering is employing quantum technology to come up with methods that lasers can function optimally in these environments.

Jung-Tsung Shen, associate professor of the Preston M. Green Department of Electrical & Systems Engineering, is working on the project of creating a prototype of the quantum photonic-dimer laser, with $1 million for two years, funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) of the U. S. Department of Defense. Using the funds, Shen will develop the two-color photonic dimer laser technology in his laboratory, where synchronized pairs of photons or photonic dimers will be used to produce a strong and well-focused light source or laser.

In quantum photonic-dimer lasers, two photons are paired up by exploiting quantum effects, resulting in the amplified energy and efficiency. Photons are particles of light and are a quantum of light, it is rather challenging to get them to interact or manipulate them because they do not have a charge and move rather quickly.

When Shen ‘glued’ two different colored photons together with two photons together to form a photonic dimer in his lab, they became a blue photon, said the quantum mechanics. Shen also noted that the coupling of the two photons inside the dimer may potentially open new opportunities in communication and imaging.

“Photons can carry information when they are in motion; however, crossing the atmospheric space is quite damaging to them,” explained Shen. “When two photons are bound together, both traveling through the atmosphere, they can still feel the effects but retain each other phase information. ” Shen explained two-color dimers can be referred to the atmosphere or the fog if it is tapped using a peculiar characteristic in quantum mechanics called entanglement. “Quantum entanglement is a correlation between photons,” he said to me, “We are attempting to use entanglement in a way that has not been done before to do what is new and different, and the entanglement can perform many things still not even thought of — it is just the beginning.

” Shen previously received a CZI grant for the purpose of developing the technology for the deep brain imaging. By injecting some fluorescent molecules into the brain tissues, scientists can then use photons to extract information about the structure of the brain. Now, Shen is drilling farther to that enormous iceberg to search for the realisation within application in telecommunication, quantum computer among others.

Shen and his team, Qihang Liu (a graduate student) and researchers from the Institute for Quantum Science and Engineering of Texas A&M University will be the first to use the quantum photonic-dimer laser methods whereby he will be able to produce various forms of two-color dimers at a rate of 1 million pairs of such dimers in a second.

‘What can make this project more special is it can produce these new strongly correlated quantum photonic states and can enhance the theoretical models and the intricate mechanisms on how these new quantum photonic states can be identified and may even re-define quantum picture and speech,’ Shen explained.

Source: Washington University in St. Louis

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