Developing Quantum Technologies Compatible with Real-World Communication Infrastructures

The present-day technologies used in crucial applications such as security and communications will one-day be succeeded with more powerful, quantum-driven components. This movement will unveil a novel set of obstacles that will require solutions in order for these quantum devices to smoothly integrate into present-day communication infrastructures. My research has focused on techniques and the engineering of quantum-optical systems that address these exact issues. Specifically, I will present a method that can accurately characterize quantum-optical devices called quantum process tomography and give examples demonstrating its viability [1] and its potential future applications. This technique has analogs to obtaining the transfer function for electrical components but instead reveals accurate predictions about the statistics of the quantum light field. In the second part of my
presentation, I will talk about my research on developing a specific quantum network component, namely a quantum optical memory. I will delineate the challenges in building such a device and show my experimental results from a memory system based on a scheme known as Electromagnetically Induced Transparency [2]. I will also highlight the future steps for these systems.