Laboratory of Photonics and Quantum Measurements

The Laboratory of Photonics and Quantum Measurements works broadly defined, in the field of Cross-Quantum Technology, i.e. it uses quantum mechanical processes such as parametric frequency conversion or radiation pressure quantum effects in both emerging classical applications in technology, as well as fundamental quantum science and technology experiments.
 
In our laboratory, we measure, simulate, design and fabricate such hybrid nanoscale quantum devices that are composed of superconducting resonators, nano- and micro-mechanical resonators, or integrated nonlinear photonic chips.

Research

Nonlinear photonic integrated circuit based frequency combs

The development of optical frequency combs, and notably self-referencing, has revolutionized precision measurements over the past decade, and enabled counting of the cycles of light. Frequency combs, for which Hall and Haensch shared the Physics Nobel Prize in 2005 has enabled dramatic advances in timekeeping, metrology and spectroscopy. In 2007, research on microresonators resulted in the discovery of a novel method to generate optical frequency combs using parametric frequency conversion in optical microresonators.

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Quantum opto- and electro-mechanics

Although mechanical oscillator are ubiquitous in our modern information technology, and used in time-keeping, MEMS accelerometers or in radio frequency filters in cell-phones, yet their quantum control had remained an outstanding challenge. The ability to achieve such quantum control has been a longstanding challenge. Over the past decade, this has become a reality: Following quantum control of individual isolated quantum systems, the latter has now been extended to macroscopic, engineered mechanical oscillators, owing to the advances in the field of cavity optomechanics.

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Superconducting Circuit Quantum Optomechanics

The theme of this project is the investigation of optomechanics – light coupled to mechanical motion at the microscale – using superconducting circuits in the microwave domain. The idea is to create an inductor-capacitor circuit made out of a thin film superconductor where the capacitor is mechanically compliant, i.e. one of its electrodes is a suspended membrane. As this membrane vibrates, it modulates the capacitance and, in turn, the resonance frequency of the microwave cavity

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News

New quantum technology combines free electrons and photons

Published:24.08.22 — Scientists from EPFL, the Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences and the University of Göttingen have successfully created electron-photon pairs for the first time in a controlled way, using integrated photonic circuits on a chip. Using a new technique, they could precisely detect the involved particles. The findings of the study expand the toolbox of quantum technology.

Boosting light power revolutionizes communications and autopilot

Published:17.06.22 — EPFL scientists have built a compact waveguide amplifier by successfully incorporating rare-earth ions into integrated photonic circuits. The device produces record output power compared to commercial fiber amplifiers, a first in the development of integrated photonics over the last decades.

Ring my string: Building silicon nano-strings

Published:02.03.22 — A team of EPFL scientists engineer nanoscale guitar strings that vibrate tens of billions of times when plucked at cryogenic temperatures, with a material originally developed for electronic transistors.

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Key Publications

Quantum opto- and electro-mechanics

• Elastic strain engineering for ultralow mechanical dissipation (Science 2018)
• A dissipative quantum reservoir for microwave light using a mechanical oscillator (Nature Physics 2017)
• Quantum Correlations of Light from a Room-Temperature Mechanical Oscillator (PRX 2017)
• Appearance and Disappearance of Quantum Correlations in Measurement-Based Feedback Control of a Mechanical Oscillator (PRX 2017)
• Measurement and control of a mechanical oscillator at its thermal decoherence rate (Nature 2015)
• Cavity optomechanics (Reviews of Modern Physics 2014)
• Quantum-coherent coupling of a mechanical oscillator to an optical cavity mode (Nature 2012)
• Optomechanically induced transparency (Science 2010)
• Cavity Optomechanics: Back-Action at the Mesoscale (Science 2008)

Nonlinear photonic integrated circuit based frequency combs

• Laser soliton microcombs heterogeneously integrated on silicon (Science 2021)
• Parallel convolutional processing using an integrated photonic tensor core (Nature 2021)
• Monolithic piezoelectric control of soliton microcombs (Nature 2020)
• Massively parallel coherent laser ranging using a soliton microcomb (Nature 2020)
• Dissipative Kerr solitons in optical microresonators (Science 2018)
• Microresonator-based solitons for massively parallel coherent optical communications (Nature 2017)
• Photonic chip-based optical frequency comb using soliton Cherenkov radiation (Science 2015)
• Temporal solitons in optical microresonators (Nature Photonics 2014) 
• Microresonator-Based Optical Frequency Combs (Science 2011)
• Optical frequency comb generation from a monolithic microresonator Nature (2007)