Quantum & Photonic Systems

Overview

Quantum & Photonic Systems is the division that treats light as both a material and a tool. QPS researchers design integrated circuits for photons the way semiconductor engineers design circuits for electrons — with systematic control over geometry, dispersion, nonlinearity and loss — and they exploit quantum mechanical properties of light and matter to build sensors and signal processors that surpass the limits of classical instruments.

The Integrated Photonics Lab develops chip-scale optical systems in silicon nitride and lithium niobate: frequency combs that serve as optical rulers, modulators that operate at millimetre-wave bandwidths and sources of entangled photon pairs for quantum key distribution. The Quantum Sensing Group uses laser-cooled atoms, optomechanical resonators and solid-state spin defects to measure acceleration, magnetic field and gravitational gradient with precision that existing instruments cannot achieve. The Nonlinear Optics Lab studies ultrafast nonlinear processes in microresonators and specialty waveguides — soliton formation, supercontinuum generation, and optical parametric conversion — connecting fundamental physics to practical mid-infrared spectroscopy and timing systems.

All three groups depend on the Cleanroom & Nanofabrication Facility for device fabrication and on the Spectroscopy & Analytical Core for material characterization. The division maintains a dedicated cryogenic photonic test station (PH-12) available for external hire.

Research themes

• Photonic integrated circuit design — dispersion engineering, inverse design and heterogeneous material platforms for chip-scale optical functions.
• Quantum light generation — deterministic single-photon and entangled-photon sources, squeezed-light generation and photon-number-resolving detection.
• Atom and spin-based sensing — atom interferometry for inertial sensing, NV-center magnetometry, and optomechanical force detection at the standard quantum limit and below.
• Ultrafast and nonlinear dynamics — Kerr solitons, modulation instability and frequency conversion in microresonator and waveguide platforms.
• Quantum photonic networks — chip-to-chip entanglement distribution, quantum repeater architectures and integration with telecom fiber infrastructure.