Corporate Social Responsibility in Canadian Banking a Case Study on the Equator Principles

This thesis considers the role of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in the Canadian banking sector. Although the relevance of CSR continues to be debated, this analysis starts from the position that CSR is now a fact of life for modern banks and tests whether Canadian banks are demonstrating CSR behavior through their adoption of the Equator Principles: a series of guidelines on the management of social and environmental issues that banks voluntarily commit to follow in their project financing activities. This thesis concludes that examples of CSR behavior can be observed as Canadian banks continue to define the scope of their involvement with the EPs. However, this conclusion is tempered by the finding that self-interested business motivations are also behind EPs adoption. Any expectations that we might arrive at “socially responsible” banks should therefore be tempered by the reality that CSR has yet to gain universal implementation in Canadian banking

Geometrically-controlled polarisation processing in an integrated photonic platform

The polarisation of light is a powerful and widely used degree of freedom to encode information, both in classical and quantum applications. In particular, quantum information technologies based on photons are being revolutionised by the use of integrated photonic circuits. It is therefore very important to be able to manipulate the polarisation of photons in such circuits. We experimentally demonstrate the fabrication by femtosecond laser micromachining of components such as polarisation insensitive or polarising directional couplers, operating at 1550 nm wavelength, where the two opposite behaviours are achieved just by controlling the geometric layout of the photonic circuits, being the waveguides fabricated with the same irradiation recipe. We expect to employ this approach in complex integrated photonic devices, capable of a full control of the photons polarisation for quantum cryptography, quantum computation and quantum teleportation experiments.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figure

Fast Escape from Quantum Mazes in Integrated Photonics

Escaping from a complex maze, by exploring different paths with several decision-making branches in order to reach the exit, has always been a very challenging and fascinating task. Wave field and quantum objects may explore a complex structure in parallel by interference effects, but without necessarily leading to more efficient transport. Here, inspired by recent observations in biological energy transport phenomena, we demonstrate how a quantum walker can efficiently reach the output of a maze by partially suppressing the presence of interference. In particular, we show theoretically an unprecedented improvement in transport efficiency for increasing maze size with respect to purely quantum and classical approaches. In addition, we investigate experimentally these hybrid transport phenomena, by mapping the maze problem in an integrated waveguide array, probed by coherent light, hence successfully testing our theoretical results. These achievements may lead towards future bio-inspired photonics technologies for more efficient transport and computation.Comment: 13 pages, 10 figure

Fractional Bloch oscillations in photonic lattices

Bloch oscillations, the oscillatory motion of a quantum particle in a periodic potential, are one of the most fascinating effects of coherent quantum transport. Originally studied in the context of electrons in crystals, Bloch oscillations manifest the wave nature of matter and are found in a wide variety of different physical systems. Here we report on the first experimental observation of fractional Bloch oscillations, using a photonic lattice as a model system of a two-particle extended Bose-Hubbard Hamiltonian. In our photonic simulator, the dynamics of two correlated particles hopping on a one-dimensional lattice is mapped into the motion of a single particle in a two-dimensional lattice with engineered defects and mimicked by light transport in a square waveguide lattice with a bent axis

Benchmarking integrated photonic architectures

Photonic platforms represent a promising technology for the realization of several quantum communication protocols and for experiments of quantum simulation. Moreover, large-scale integrated interferometers have recently gained a relevant role for restricted models of quantum computing, specifically with Boson Sampling devices. Indeed, various linear optical schemes have been proposed for the implementation of unitary transformations, each one suitable for a specific task. Notwithstanding, so far a comprehensive analysis of the state of the art under broader and realistic conditions is still lacking. In the present work we address this gap, providing in a unified framework a quantitative comparison of the three main photonic architectures, namely the ones with triangular and square designs and the so-called fast transformations. All layouts have been analyzed in presence of losses and imperfect control over the reflectivities and phases of the inner structure. Our results represent a further step ahead towards the implementation of quantum information protocols on large-scale integrated photonic devices.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures + 2 pages Supplementary Informatio

All-optical non-Markovian stroboscopic quantum simulator

An all-optical scheme for simulating non-Markovian evolution of a quantum system is proposed. It uses only linear optics elements and by controlling the system parameters allows one to control the presence or absence of information backflow from the environment. A sufficient and necessary condition for the non-Markovianity of our channel based on Gaussian inputs is proved. Various criteria for detecting non-Markovianity are also investigated by checking the dynamical evolution of the channel.Comment: 7 figures. Typos are corrected and new reference is adde

Two-particle bosonic-fermionic quantum walk via 3D integrated photonics

Quantum walk represents one of the most promising resources for the simulation of physical quantum systems, and has also emerged as an alternative to the standard circuit model for quantum computing. Up to now the experimental implementations have been restricted to single particle quantum walk, while very recently the quantum walks of two identical photons have been reported. Here, for the first time, we investigate how the particle statistics, either bosonic or fermionic, influences a two-particle discrete quantum walk. Such experiment has been realized by adopting two-photon entangled states and integrated photonic circuits. The polarization entanglement was exploited to simulate the bunching-antibunching feature of non interacting bosons and fermions. To this scope a novel three-dimensional geometry for the waveguide circuit is introduced, which allows accurate polarization independent behaviour, maintaining a remarkable control on both phase and balancement.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures + supplementary informatio

Polarization entangled state measurement on a chip

The emerging strategy to overcome the limitations of bulk quantum optics consists of taking advantage of the robustness and compactness achievable by the integrated waveguide technology. Here we report the realization of a directional coupler, fabricated by femtosecond laser waveguide writing, acting as an integrated beam splitter able to support polarization encoded qubits. This maskless and single step technique allows to realize circular transverse waveguide profiles able to support the propagation of Gaussian modes with any polarization state. Using this device, we demonstrate the quantum interference with polarization entangled states and singlet state projection.Comment: Revtex, 5+2 pages (with supplementary information), 4+1 figure