Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Merchant Venturers School of Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Bristol, Woodland Road, Bristol, BS8 1UB, United Kingdom.
Sci Rep. 2017 Mar 28;7:45582. doi: 10.1038/srep45582.
The future Internet is very likely the mixture of all-optical Internet with low power consumption and quantum Internet with absolute security guaranteed by the laws of quantum mechanics. Photons would be used for processing, routing and com-munication of data, and photonic transistor using a weak light to control a strong light is the core component as an optical analogue to the electronic transistor that forms the basis of modern electronics. In sharp contrast to previous all-optical tran-sistors which are all based on optical nonlinearities, here I introduce a novel design for a high-gain and high-speed (up to terahertz) photonic transistor and its counterpart in the quantum limit, i.e., single-photon transistor based on a linear optical effect: giant Faraday rotation induced by a single electronic spin in a single-sided optical microcavity. A single-photon or classical optical pulse as the gate sets the spin state via projective measurement and controls the polarization of a strong light to open/block the photonic channel. Due to the duality as quantum gate for quantum information processing and transistor for optical information processing, this versatile spin-cavity quantum transistor provides a solid-state platform ideal for all-optical networks and quantum networks.
未来的互联网很可能是低功耗的全光互联网与由量子力学定律保证绝对安全的量子互联网的混合体。光子将用于处理、路由和传输数据，而使用弱光控制强光的光子晶体管是一种光模拟电子晶体管的核心组件，电子晶体管构成了现代电子学的基础。与以前所有基于光非线性的全光晶体管形成鲜明对比的是，我在这里介绍了一种新型的高增益和高速（高达太赫兹）光子晶体管及其在量子极限下的对应物，即基于线性光学效应的单光子晶体管：在单侧光学微腔中单个电子自旋引起的巨法拉第旋转。单光子或经典光学脉冲作为门，通过投影测量设置自旋状态，并控制强光的偏振以打开/阻断光子通道。由于其作为量子信息处理量子门和光信息处理晶体管的双重性，这种多功能的自旋腔量子晶体管为全光网络和量子网络提供了理想的固态平台。
