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    Wavelength-tunable sources of entangled photons interfaced with atomic vapours
    (London : Nature Publishing Group, 2016) Trotta, Rinaldo; Martín-Sánchez, Javier; Wildmann, Johannes S.; Piredda, Giovanni; Reindl, Marcus; Schimpf, Christian; Zallo, Eugenio; Stroj, Sandra; Edlinger, Johannes; Rastelli, Armando
    The prospect of using the quantum nature of light for secure communication keeps spurring the search and investigation of suitable sources of entangled photons. A single semiconductor quantum dot is one of the most attractive, as it can generate indistinguishable entangled photons deterministically and is compatible with current photonic-integration technologies. However, the lack of control over the energy of the entangled photons is hampering the exploitation of dissimilar quantum dots in protocols requiring the teleportation of quantum entanglement over remote locations. Here we introduce quantum dot-based sources of polarization-entangled photons whose energy can be tuned via three-directional strain engineering without degrading the degree of entanglement of the photon pairs. As a test-bench for quantum communication, we interface quantum dots with clouds of atomic vapours, and we demonstrate slow-entangled photons from a single quantum emitter. These results pave the way towards the implementation of hybrid quantum networks where entanglement is distributed among distant parties using optoelectronic devices.
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    Spin-orbit coupling of light in asymmetric microcavities
    (London : Nature Publishing Group, 2016) Ma, L.B.; Li, S.L.; Fomin, V.M.; Hentschel, M.; Götte, J.B.; Yin, Y.; Jorgensen, M.R.; Schmidt, O.G.
    When spinning particles, such as electrons and photons, undergo spin–orbit coupling, they can acquire an extra phase in addition to the well-known dynamical phase. This extra phase is called the geometric phase (also known as the Berry phase), which plays an important role in a startling variety of physical contexts such as in photonics, condensed matter, high-energy and space physics. The geometric phase was originally discussed for a cyclically evolving physical system with an Abelian evolution, and was later generalized to non-cyclic and non-Abelian cases, which are the most interesting fundamental subjects in this area and indicate promising applications in various fields. Here, we enable optical spin–orbit coupling in asymmetric microcavities and experimentally observe a non-cyclic optical geometric phase acquired in a non-Abelian evolution. Our work is relevant to fundamental studies and implies promising applications by manipulating photons in on-chip quantum devices.