Insider Brief<\/p>\n
UTS researchers and collaborators developed a twist-based method for controlling quantum light sources in hexagonal boron nitride, advancing a key building block for practical quantum technologies.<\/p>\n
The team showed that picking up, twisting and restacking layered hBN could significantly shift the colour and wavelength of emitted quantum light.<\/p>\n
The researchers said the approach could support future applications in quantum computing, secure communications, quantum sensing, healthcare, cybersecurity and improved GPS.<\/p>\n
Image: Photo by Sean Sinclair<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a><\/p>\n PRESS RELEASE \u2014 In a paper published in\u00a0Science Advances, researchers at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) in collaboration with the University of Minnesota and Kyung Hee University have found a new way to control quantum light sources, which is one of the key elements needed before quantum technologies can be used reliably in real-world systems.<\/p>\n Lead author Dr Angus Gale says the research gives scientists a new control mechanism for tiny quantum light sources, bringing them a step closer to being used in practical quantum technologies such as quantum computing, secure communication and ultra-sensitive sensing.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can measure these quantum emitters and see that they exist, but it\u2019s hard to make them work in practice. This gives us a lever to get closer to that \u2013 a step towards the realisation of quantum technologies,\u201d said Dr Gale.<\/p>\n In experiments, Gale and his colleagues were able to shift the colour and wavelength of the emitted light by a significant amount, with the size of the shift notable. Unlike many experiments where a device is made at one twist angle and left alone, they were able to pick up, twist and restack the material repeatedly, which was an unusual finding.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re leveraging the fact that this material, hexagonal boron nitride (hBN), is layered. We can pick it up, stack it, twist it, and use that twist to modify the emitters. You can\u2019t really do that with traditional materials like diamond or silicon carbide.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe benefit is that we used this twistable platform to shift the emission by a very significant amount,\u201d said Gale. \u201cOften when you control these systems, the amount of manipulation is very limited, but in this case the shift was much larger than expected.<\/p>\n \u201cRather than trying to make hBN defects behave like a traditional solid-state hosts, we took advantage of hBN\u2019s own strength: its thin, layered, twistable structure.\u201d<\/p>\n Gale describes the material as similar to thin\u00a0slices of cheese rather than a solid block.<\/p>\n \u201cWith a block of cheese, you can\u2019t really get to the flavour in the middle. But with slices, you can peel away layers, put them back together and change how they interact,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Supervising author Professor Igor Aharonovich\u00a0explains that twisting layered materials is exciting because it can unlock new physics.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can take two layers that don\u2019t do much on their own, put them together at a specific angle, and suddenly you have a completely different system,\u201d said Professor Aharonovich.<\/p>\n \u201cThese materials could eventually be used for quantum computing communications and quantum sensing, which would help for applications such as healthcare, cybersecurity and improved GPS; and gives us more control over the building blocks needed to get there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Insider Brief UTS researchers and collaborators developed a twist-based method for controlling quantum light sources in hexagonal boron…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":505492,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[85,46,370,141],"class_list":["post-505491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-physics","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-physics","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=505491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/505492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=505491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=505491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=505491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}