Phys.org March 23, 2022
Researchers in Australia have developed an on-demand way to generate photons with high purity in a scalable and portable system that operates at room temperature. They combined hexagonal boron nitride with a hemispherical solid immersion lens, which increases the source’s efficiency by a factor of six. They incorporated the single-photon source into a fully portable device that can perform QKD. They demonstrated that it could produce over ten million single photons per second at room temperature. The streamlined device is easier to use and much smaller than traditional optical table setups allowing the system to be used with a range of quantum computing schemes. It could also be adapted to work with existing telecommunications infrastructure. Tests showed that it could achieve a single-photon collection rate of 107 Hz while maintaining excellent purity, and exceptional stability over many hours of continuous operation. The researchers also demonstrated the system’s ability to perform QKD under realistic conditions, showing that secured QKD with 20 MHz repetition rates would be feasible over several kilometers…read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
The single-photon source and confocal microscope are housed inside a robust package… Credit: Helen Zeng, University of Technology Sydney