SD-25045 – PHD IN HONG-OU-MANDEL INTERFERENCE AND ENTANGLEMENT WITH COLOUR CENTRES IN SILICON CARBIDE

The Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST) is a Research and Technology Organization (RTO) active in the fields of materials, environment and IT. By transforming scientific knowledge into technologies, smart data and tools, LIST empowers citizens in their choices, public authorities in their decisions and businesses in their strategies.

Do you want to know more about LIST? Check our website: https://www.list.lu/

Your LIST benefits

• An organization with a passion for impact and strong RDI partnerships in Luxembourg and Europe that works on responsible and independent research projects
• Sustainable by design, empowering our belief that we play an essential role in paving the way to a green society
• Innovative infrastructures and exceptional labs occupying more than 5,000 square metres, including innovations in all that we do
• An environment encouraging curiosity, innovation and entrepreneurship in all areas
• Personalized learning programme to foster our staff’s soft and technical skills
• Multicultural and international work environment with more than 50 nationalities represented in our workforce
• Diverse and inclusive work environment empowering our people to fulfil their personal and professional ambitions
• Gender-friendly environment with multiple actions to attract, develop and retain women in science
• 32 days’ paid annual leave, 11 public holidays, 13-month salary, statutory health insurance
• Flexible working hours, home working policy and access to lunch vouchers

Temporary contract | 14+22(+12) months | Belval

Are you passionate about research? So are we! Come and join us

How will you contribute?

You will be part of the LIST Materials Research and Technology department, where you will carry out your work in the Quantum Materials Group, led by Dr. Florian Kaiser.

Quantum technologies have the potential to revolutionise the world in many aspects. Quantum colour centres in in wide bandgap semiconductors have recently emerged as a promising platform, since they can incorporate quantum systems, which can be scaled up by industrial processing. Along these lines, we have recently shown that individual colour centres can be integrated into silicon carbide nanophotonic waveguides with little-to-no degradation of spin-optical coherences. These finding define the strategy for developing a scalable quantum technology architecture.

Our strategy is to use multiplexed and integrated colour centres for quantum communication tasks. Key here is to generate entanglement between colour centres based on spin-photon entanglement, as well as Hong-Ou-Mandel interference. With this milestone demonstration, we strive to kickstart subsequent developments towards a quantum internet architecture.

The objective of this PhD thesis is to support our work towards optical interference between colour centres, i.e., Hong-Ou-Mandel interference. The initial part of this thesis comprises setting up our new optical cryostat platform, which is based on a combination of standard confocal microscopy, and interferometry. In the second step, you will benefit from our ongoing activities towards quantum photonic silicon carbide chips in which we generate colour centres in fibre-coupled waveguides.

You will determine the ideal pulsed excitation schemes for colour centres, considering spectral, temporal and polarization filtering. Subsequently, you will characterise the photon quality depending on experimental parameters, and implement initial two-photon inteference experiments outside of the cryostat, followed by a fully-on-chip demonstration inside the cryostat. If time permits, this project can be further extended to the generation of entanglement between two colour centre chips located in two different cryostats.

Is Your profile described below? Are you our future colleague? Apply now!

Education

• MSc degree in physics or quantum technology.

Experience and skills

• Excellent written and oral communication skills e.g., in publications, reports, and/or presentations
• Collaborative skills, initiative, result oriented, organisation, and capacity to work in an interdisciplinary environment
• Team spirit is a critical requirement.
• Mandatory: Demonstrated experience with quantum optics, at least within a BSc/MSc thesis project.
• Ability to effectively and reliably coordinate with the supervisor and multiple collaborators

Language skills

• Good level both written and spoken English