Photonic integrated circuits (PICs) have become increasingly important in classical communications applications over the past decades, including as transmitters and receivers in long-haul, metro and datacenter interconnects. Many of the same attributes that make PICs attractive for these applications — compactness, high bandwidth, and the ability to control large numbers of optical modes with high phase stability — also make them appealing for quantum information processing. The first part of this talk will review our recent progress in adapting one of the leading PIC architectures—silicon photonics—for various quantum secure communications protocols. The second part of the talk will consider how photonic integrated circuits technology can extend the reach of quantum communications through all-optical and memory-based quantum repeater protocols. Beyond quantum communications, PICs are also finding application in quantum computing and in classical signal processing applications, including artificial neural networks.
Bio: Dirk Englund received his BS in Physics from Caltech in 2002. Following a year at TU Eindhoven as a Fulbright Fellow, he earned his MS in EE and PhD in Applied Physics from Stanford University in 2008. He was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University until 2010, when he became Assistant Professor of E.E. and Applied Physics at Columbia University. He joined the MIT EECS faculty in 2013. Recent recognitions include the 2011 PECASE, the 2011 Sloan Fellowship in Physics, the 2012 DARPA Young Faculty Award, the 2017 ACS Photonics Young Investigator Award, and the OSA's 2017 Adolph Lomb Medal.