Project title: Molecular Photon Sources for Quantum Sensors

Supervisor: Professor Ed Hinds and Dr Alex Clark

Project description

Efficient single photon sources can be used for a multitude of quantum technologies, from long distance secure communication to quantum simulation and computation. Single dibenzoterrylene molecules in an anthracene lattice are capable of generating (distinguishable) photons which are ideal for use in sub shot noise imaging. They have unity quantum yield and have long term stability. The first part of the Masters and PhD will focus on understanding the emission of DBT, in particular the temperature and pump laser detuning dependence to find optimal conditions for photon generation. Current research using DBT typically suffers from poor collection efficiencies, so the next stage will be to engineer the environment of the DBT to increase the number of photons collected. This will hopefully result in an efficient, deterministic single photon source which can be compared to the current probabilistic methods used to take sub shot noise transmissivity measurements, with potential applications in imaging light sensitive samples.