Scientists move quantum optic networks a step closer to reality

Scientists have moved quantum optic networks a step closer to reality. The ability to precisely control the interactions of light and matter at the nanoscale could help such a network transmit larger amounts of data more quickly and securely than an electrical network.

A team of researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory, the University of Chicago and Northwestern University have successfully surmounted the significant challenges of measuring how nanoplatelets, which consist of two-dimensional layers of cadmium selenide, interact with light in three dimensions. Advances in this area could enhance the operation of quantum optic networks.

"In order to integrate nanoplatelets into, say, photonic devices, we have to understand how they interact with light or how they emit light," noted Xuedan Ma,nanoscientist at the Center for Nanoscale Materials (CNM), a DOE Office of Science User Facility at Argonne. Ma and six co-authors published their findings in Nano Letters in a paper titled "Anisotropic photoluminescence from isotropic optical transition dipoles in semiconductor nanoplatelets."