We’ve always had limited success with predicting future technologies by examining current technologies. For example, the Internet and World Wide Web as we experience them today would have been unthinkable for most people in the 1950s when computers inhabited entire buildings and satellites were a brand new technology designed for space exploration not bouncing communication signals around the planet. That said, this new work on a ‘quantum internet’ from Eindhoven University of Technology is quite intriguing (from a Dec. 15, 2014 news item on Nanowerk),

In the same way as we now connect computers in networks through optical signals, it could also be possible to connect future quantum computers in a ‘quantum internet’. The optical signals would then consist of individual light particles or photons. One prerequisite for a working quantum internet is control of the shape of these photons. Researchers at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) and the FOM foundation  [Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter] have now succeeded for the first time in getting this control within the required short time.

A Dec. 15, 2014 Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) press release, which originated the news item, describes one of the problems with a ‘quantum internet’ and the researchers’ solution,

Quantum computers could in principle communicate with each other by exchanging individual photons to create a ‘quantum internet’. The shape of the photons, in other words how their energy is distributed over time, is vital for successful transmission of information. This shape must be symmetric in time, while photons that are emitted by atoms normally have an asymmetric shape. Therefore, this process requires external control in order to create a quantum internet.

Optical cavity

Researchers at TU/e and FOM have succeeded in getting the required degree of control by embedding a quantum dot – a piece of semiconductor material that can transmit photons – into a ‘photonic crystal’, thereby creating an optical cavity. Then the researchers applied a very short electrical pulse to the cavity, which influences how the quantum dot interacts with it, and how the photon is emitted. By varying the strength of this pulse, they were able to control the shape of the transmitted photons.

Within a billionth of a second

The Eindhoven researchers are the first to achieve this, thanks to the use of electrical pulses shorter than nanosecond, a billionth of a second. This is vital for use in quantum communication, as research leader Andrea Fiore of TU/e explains: “The emission of a photon only lasts for one nanosecond, so if you want to change anything you have to do it within that time. It’s like the shutter of a high-speed camera, which has to be very short if you want to capture something that changes very fast in an image. By controlling the speed at which you send a photon, you can in principle achieve very efficient exchange of photons, which is important for the future quantum internet.”

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Dynamically controlling the emission of single excitons in photonic crystal cavities by Francesco Pagliano, YongJin Cho, Tian Xia, Frank van Otten, Robert Johne, & Andrea Fiore. Nature Communications 5, Article number: 5786 doi:10.1038/ncomms6786 Published 15 December 2014

This is an open access paper.

ETA Dec. 16, 2014 at 1230 hours PDT: There is a copy of the Dec. 15, 2014 news release on EurekAlert.