9~GHz measurement of squeezed light by interfacing silicon photonics and integrated electronics

Photonic quantum technology can be enhanced by monolithic fabrication of both the underpinning quantum hardware and the corresponding electronics for classical readout and control. Together, this enables miniaturisation and mass-manufacture of small quantum devices---such as quantum communication nodes, quantum sensors and sources of randomness---and promises the precision and scale of fabrication required to assemble useful quantum computers. Here we combine CMOS compatible silicon and germanium-on-silicon nano-photonics with silicon-germanium integrated amplification electronics to improve performance of on-chip homodyne detection of quantum light. We observe a 3 dB bandwidth of 1.7 GHz, shot-noise limited performance beyond 9 GHz and minaturise the required footprint to 0.84 mm. We use the device to observe quantum squeezed light, from 100 MHz to 9 GHz, generated in a lithium niobate waveguide. This demonstrates that an all-integrated approach yields faster homodyne detectors for quantum technology than has been achieved to-date and opens the way to full-stack integration of photonic quantum devices.Comment: Nat. Photonics (2020

Shot-noise limited homodyne detection for MHz quantum light characterisation in the 2 µm band

Characterising quantum states of light in the 2 μm band requires high-performance shot-noise limited detectors. Here, we present the characterisation of a homodyne detector that we use to observe vacuum shot-noise via homodyne measurement with a 2.07 μm pulsed mode-locked laser. The device is designed primarily for pulsed illumination. It has a 3-dB bandwidth of 13.2 MHz, total conversion efficiency of 57% at 2.07 μm, and a common-mode rejection ratio of 48 dB at 39.5 MHz. The detector begins to saturate at 1.8 mW with 9 dB of shot-noise clearance at 5 MHz. This demonstration enables the characterisation of megahertz-quantum optical behaviour in the 2 μm band and provides a guide of how to design a 2 μm homodyne detector for quantum applications

9 GHz measurement of squeezed light by interfacing silicon photonics and integrated electronics

Open access data related to the manuscript "9 GHz measurement of squeezed light by interfacing silicon photonics and integrated electronics" By Joel F. Tasker, Jonathan Frazer, Giacomo Ferranti, Euan J. Allen, Léandre F. Brunel, Sébastien Tanzilli, Virginia D' Auria, Jonathan C. F. Matthew

Maximisation of quantum correlations under local filtering operations

Nonclassical correlations are a key resource to explore foundational quantum information tasks and find applications in device-independent protocols. Quantum steering was formalized in 2007 [1] and is distinct from other nonclassical correlations such as Bell nonlocality [2] and entanglement. Steering describes the effect of a local measurement on one system and affecting the measurement results on the other system. This can be visualized for two-qubit states using quantum steering ellipsoids (QSE), which is the set of Bloch vectors that Alice can collapse Bob's state to. They are theoretically well studied [3-6] and have been recently experimentally demonstrated [7]

Glucocorticoid receptor antagonism decreases alcohol seeking in alcohol-dependent individuals

Alcoholism, or alcohol use disorder, is a major public health concern that is a considerable risk factor for morbidity and disability; therefore, effective treatments are urgently needed. Here, we demonstrated that the glucocorticoid receptor (GR) antagonist mifepristone reduces alcohol intake in alcohol-dependent rats but not in nondependent animals. Both systemic delivery and direct administration into the central nucleus of the amygdala, a critical stress-related brain region, were sufficient to reduce alcohol consumption in dependent animals. We also tested the use of mifepristone in 56 alcohol-dependent human subjects as part of a double-blind clinical and laboratory-based study. Relative to placebo, individuals who received mifepristone (600 mg daily taken orally for 1 week) exhibited a substantial reduction in alcohol-cued craving in the laboratory, and naturalistic measures revealed reduced alcohol consumption during the 1-week treatment phase and 1-week post-treatment phase in mifepristone-treated individuals. Mifepristone was well tolerated and improved liver-function markers. Together, these results support further exploration of GR antagonism via mifepristone as a therapeutic strategy for alcoholism