Hardy's paradox and violation of a state-independent Bell inequality in time

Tests such as Bell's inequality and Hardy's paradox show that joint probabilities and correlations between distant particles in quantum mechanics are inconsistent with local realistic theories. Here we experimentally demonstrate these concepts in the time domain, using a photonic entangling gate to perform nondestructive measurements on a single photon at different times. We show that Hardy's paradox is much stronger in time and demonstrate the violation of a temporal Bell inequality independent of the quantum state, including for fully mixed states.Comment: Published Version, 4 pages, 3 figures. New, more boring titl

Discrete single-photon quantum walks with tunable decoherence

Quantum walks have a host of applications, ranging from quantum computing to the simulation of biological systems. We present an intrinsically stable, deterministic implementation of discrete quantum walks with single photons in space. The number of optical elements required scales linearly with the number of steps. We measure walks with up to 6 steps and explore the quantum-to-classical transition by introducing tunable decoherence. Finally, we also investigate the effect of absorbing boundaries and show that decoherence significantly affects the probability of absorption.Comment: Published version, 5 pages, 4 figure

Tribological Properties of Nanometric Atomic Layer Depositions Applied on AISI 420 Stainless Steel

Atomic Layer Deposition ( ALD ) is a modern technique that Allows to deposit nanometric, conformal coatings on almost any kind of substrates, from plastics to ceramic, metals or even composites. ALD coatings are not dependent on the morphology of the substrate and are only regulated by the composition of the precursors, the chamber temperature and the number of cycles. In this work, mono- and bi -layer nanometric, protective low-temperature ALD Coatings, based on Al2O3 and TiO2 were applied on AISI 420 Stainless Steel in orderto enhance its relatively low corrosion resistance in chloride containing environments. Tribological testing were also performed on the ALD coated AISI 420 in order to evaluate the wear and scratch resistance of these nanometric layers and thus evaluate their durability. Scratch tests were performed using a standard Rockwell C indenter, under a variable load condition, in order to evaluate the critical loading condition for each coating. Wear testing were performed using a stainless steel counterpart, in ball-on-discconfiguration, in order to measure the friction coefficient and wear to confront the resistance. All scratch tests scars and wear tracks were then observed by means of Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) in order to understand the wear mechanisms that occurred on the sample surfaces. Corrosion testing, performed under immersion in 0.2 M NaCl solutions, clearly showed that the ALD coatings have a strong effect in protecting the Stainless Steel Substrate against corrosion, reducing the corrosion current density by two orders of magnitude.Tribological The preliminary results showed that ALD depositions obtained at low Temperatures have a brittle behavior caused by the amorphous nature of their structure, and thus undergo delamination phenomena during Scratch Testing at relatively low applied loads. During ball-on-disc testing, the coatings were removed from the substrate, in particular for monolayer ALD configurations, Which seem to have a lower toughness when compared to bi-layer configurations

Quantum entanglement distribution with 810 nm photons through telecom fibers

We demonstrate the distribution of polarization entangled photons of wavelength 810 nm through standard telecom fibers. This technique allows quantum communication protocols to be performed over established fiber infrastructure, and makes use of the smaller and better performing setups available around 800 nm, as compared to those which use telecom wavelengths around 1550 nm. We examine the excitation and subsequent quenching of higher-order spatial modes in telecom fibers up to 6 km in length, and perform a distribution of high quality entanglement (visibility 95.6%). Finally, we demonstrate quantum key distribution using entangled 810 nm photons over a 4.4 km long installed telecom fiber link.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, 1 tabl

A Novel Protocol-Authentication Algorithm Ruling Out a Man-in-the-Middle Attack in Quantum Cryptography

In this work we review the security vulnerability of Quantum Cryptography with respect to "man-in-the-middle attacks" and the standard authentication methods applied to counteract these attacks. We further propose a modified authentication algorithm which features higher efficiency with respect to consumption of mutual secret bits.Comment: 4 pages, submitted to the International Journal of Quantum Information, Proceedings of the meeting "Foundations of Quantum Information", Camerino, April 200

Entanglement-free certification of entangling gates

Not all quantum protocols require entanglement to outperform their classical alternatives. The nonclassical correlations that lead to this quantum advantage are conjectured to be captured by quantum discord. Here we demonstrate that discord can be explicitly used as a resource: certifying untrusted entangling gates without generating entanglement at any stage. We implement our protocol in the single-photon regime, and show its success in the presence of high levels of noise and imperfect gate operations. Our technique offers a practical method for benchmarking entangling gates in physical architectures in which only highly-mixed states are available.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure

Efficient measurement of quantum dynamics via compressive sensing

The resources required to characterise the dynamics of engineered quantum systems-such as quantum computers and quantum sensors-grow exponentially with system size. Here we adapt techniques from compressive sensing to exponentially reduce the experimental configurations required for quantum process tomography. Our method is applicable to dynamical processes that are known to be nearly-sparse in a certain basis and it can be implemented using only single-body preparations and measurements. We perform efficient, high-fidelity estimation of process matrices on an experiment attempting to implement a photonic two-qubit logic-gate. The data base is obtained under various decoherence strengths. We find that our technique is both accurate and noise robust, thus removing a key roadblock to the development and scaling of quantum technologies.Comment: New title and authors. A new experimental section. Significant rewrite of the theor

Tribological Behavior of Thermal Spray Coatings, Deposited by HVOF and APS Techniques, and Composite Electrodeposits Ni/SiC at Both Room Temperature and 300 °C

The Both the thermal spray and the electroplating coatings are widely used because of their high wear resistance combined with good corrosion resistance. In particular the addition of both micro particles or nano‐particles to the electro deposited coatings could lead to an increase of the mechanical properties, caused by the change of the coating microstructure. The thermal spray coatings were deposited following industrial standards procedures, while the Ni/SiC composite coatings were produced at laboratory scale using both micro‐and nano‐sized ceramic particles. All the produced coatings were characterized regarding their microstructure,mechanical properties and the wear resistance. The tribological properties were analyzed using a tribometer under ball on disk configuration at both room temperature and 300oC. The results showed that the cermet thermal spray coatings have a high wear resistance, while the Ni nano‐composite showed good anti wear properties compared to the harder ceramic/cermet coatings deposited by thermal spray technique

Information complementarity in quantum physics

We demonstrate that the concept of information offers a more complete description of complementarity than the traditional approach based on observables. We present the first experimental test of information complementarity for two-qubit pure states, achieving close agreement with theory; We also explore the distribution of information in a comprehensive range of mixed states. Our results highlight the strange and subtle properties of even the simplest quantum systems: for example, entanglement can be increased by reducing correlations between two subsystems.Comment: 6 pages, 7 figures (including supplementary material