University of Toronto engineers identify new photon production method

Even though the photon is king in the age of high-speed computing, producing the finely tuned particles of light is a complex and time-consuming process, at least until now. Electrical and computer engineering Professor Amr Helmy and his team of engineers have identified a novel solution that will make the production of special class of photons faster and easier. They have successfully designed a new integrated counterpart to the delicate laboratory equipment that could produce entangled photon pairs using an integrated circuit. Ultimately, the entire production of the photons could be completed using a single chip, which unlike previous attempts allows the necessary laboratory components to be added. Difficult computational problems will be easier to solve with quantum optical computing. Producing entangled pairs using this chip is a first and significant step towards making them commercially available and could lead to future quantum-optical gadgets.