Lasers for Quantum Technologies

Quantum effects open up numerous possibilities in sensing, computing, and cryptography. Over the past years, research labs have made major breakthroughs in quantum-based systems. Over the next decade, it is expected that a large number these systems will even become available commercially, promising to deliver higher sensitivity and extreme resolution compared to todays techniques.

Colour center defects

One class of quantum sensors are scanning-probe magnetometers based on singe NV- defects in diamond tips which act as local optically addressable quantum sensors. These systems enable measuring magnetic fields with spatial resolutions on the nanometer scale. Applications for this class of magnetometers are microwave current imaging, characterization of electronics, and studying new materials like multiferroics and antiferromagnets. The realization of quantum-sensor based experimental setups and products relies on the availability of state-of-the art components like specialized diamond tips, fast low-noise electronics, and high-performance lasers. The Cobolt 06-01 Series of modulated laser diodes, eg the 06-MLD 515 nm and 633 nm lasers are well suited and popular for spin-initialization and read out owing to their fast (< 2.5 ns), deep (> 60 dB), and precise intensity modulation capabilities via live TTL control, high intensity stability and good Gaussian beam profile. The Cobolt Samba™ 532 nm and Cobolt Mambo™ 594 nm lasers with double-path acousto-optic modulators (AOM) are other lasers popular for this class of applications.

Research groups employ the widely tunable single-frequency cw laser C-WAVE to characterize new candidates for quantum centers, like Si-V, Ge-V, Sn-V and Pb-V color centers in diamond, quantum dots, single molecules, or Rydberg states of plasmon-exciton polaritons to name a few. The C-WAVE is also used to test the quality of artificially grown structures with color centers designed for quantum applications. Key characteristics of the C-WAVE are the wide spectral coverage in the visible and NIR (450 nm – 3.5 µm), narrow linewidth (< 1 MHz), mode-hop-free tunablility, high output power of several hundret milliwatts, and its nearly perfect Gaussian beam profile.

Quantum cryptography

Another example is the narrow-linewidth laser diode Cobolt NLD 405 or 785 nm which are used to generate entangled pairs of photons via down-conversion in nonlinear-optical crystal.

Please contact us to discuss your application and laser requirements and to check for suitable high-performance lasers for integration with your quantum product or use in your lab.