For over a century, physicists have been unraveling the mysteries of how photons, electrons, and other subatomic particles behave at incredibly tiny scales. Engineers, in turn, have spent decades transforming these discoveries into practical technologies.
One of the most fascinating phenomena in this realm is quantum entanglement. When two photons become entangled, their states are linked in such a way that any change in one photon’s state is instantly mirrored by the other, no matter how far apart they are.
Nearly 80 years ago, Albert Einstein famously called this phenomenon “spooky action at a distance.” Today, quantum entanglement is a major focus of global research and is emerging as a preferred method for implementing the qubit, the basic unit of quantum information.
Currently, the most efficient way to create photon pairs requires sending light waves through a crystal large enough to see without a microscope. In a paper published on January 13 in Nature Photonics, a team led by Columbia Engineering researchers and collaborators, describe a new method for creating these photon pairs that achieves higher performance on a much smaller device using less energy. P. James Schuck, associate professor of mechanical engineering at Columbia Engineering, helped lead the research team.
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