Large Cross-Phase Modulations at the Few-Photon Level.

We demonstrate an efficient cross-phase modulation (XPM) based on a closed-loop double-Λ system. The property of the double-Λ medium can be controlled by changing the phases of the applied optical fields. This phase-dependent XPM scheme can achieve large phase modulations at low-light intensities without requiring cavities or tightly focusing laser beams. With this scheme, we observe a π-level phase shift with two pulses, both consisting of eight photons in cold rubidium atoms. Such a novel scheme provides a simple route to generate strong interactions between photons and may have potential applications in all-optical quantum signal processing.

Parallel Transport Quantum Logic Gates with Trapped Ions.

We demonstrate single-qubit operations by transporting a beryllium ion with a controlled velocity through a stationary laser beam. We use these to perform coherent sequences of quantum operations, and to perform parallel quantum logic gates on two ions in different processing zones of a multiplexed ion trap chip using a single recycled laser beam. For the latter, we demonstrate individually addressed single-qubit gates by local control of the speed of each ion. The fidelities we observe are consistent with operations performed using standard methods involving static ions and pulsed laser fields. This work therefore provides a path to scalable ion trap quantum computing with reduced requirements on the optical control complexity.

Spin-motion entanglement and state diagnosis with squeezed oscillator wavepackets.

Mesoscopic superpositions of distinguishable coherent states provide an analogue of the 'Schrödinger's cat' thought experiment. For mechanical oscillators these have primarily been realized using coherent wavepackets, for which the distinguishability arises as a result of the spatial separation of the superposed states. Here we demonstrate superpositions composed of squeezed wavepackets, which we generate by applying an internal-state-dependent force to a single trapped ion initialized in a squeezed vacuum state with nine decibel reduction in the quadrature variance. This allows us to characterize the initial squeezed wavepacket by monitoring the onset of spin-motion entanglement, and to verify the evolution of the number states of the oscillator as a function of the duration of the force. In both cases we observe clear differences between displacements aligned with the squeezed and anti-squeezed axes. We observe coherent revivals when inverting the state-dependent force after separating the wavepackets by more than 19 times the ground-state root mean squared extent, which corresponds to 56 times the root mean squared extent of the squeezed wavepacket along the displacement direction. Aside from their fundamental nature, these states may be useful for quantum metrology or quantum information processing with continuous variables.

Femtowatt-light-level phase measurement of slow light pulses via beat-note interferometer.

We report on an experimental demonstration of applying the beat-note interferometer to simultaneously measure the phase and amplitude variations of light pulses after propagating through an electromagnetically induced transparency medium at femtowatt-light levels. Furthermore, we observe that the measured phase noise approaches the shot-noise level arising from the fluctuations of detected photons.

Emission efficiency dependence on the width and thickness of nanogaps in surface-conduction electron-emitter displays.

In this work, we explore the optimal size of nanogaps for the high field emission (FE) efficiency. In the FE process, the emission current is highly dependent upon both the material properties and the shape of the emitter. Thus, we first calibrate the theoretical model with the experimental data using the numerical simulation which is developed to evaluate the FE efficiency under different conditions. A three-dimensional finite-difference time-domain particle-in-cell method which approaches to self-consistent simulation of the electromagnetic fields and charged particles is adopted to simulate the electron emission in the surface-conduction electron-emitter display (SED) device. Examinations into conducting characteristics, FE efficiency, local electric fields around the emitter, and current density on the anode plate with one surface conduction electron-emitter (SCE) are conducted. It is found that the optimal width of nanogap in the SCE is about 80-90 nm and optimal thickness of the emitter is 30 nm to obtain the highest FE efficiency. This study benefits the advanced SED design for a new type of electron sources.