Organic molecular quantum technologies

13 June 2017
Dr Alex Clark, Imperial College, London

Organic devices are seeing widespread use in classical technologies, from organic electronics and transistors to organic light-emitting diodes and solar cells. Organic molecules also have a number of desirable properties for use in various quantum technologies, including photon sources, quantum memories, or as sources of nonlinearity in quantum processing.

By choosing a suitable host crystal for organic dye molecules, one can isolate single molecules which, when cooled to cryogenic temperatures, show Fourier-limited absorption and emission linewidths. Such dye-doped crystals can then be deposited on standard photonic devices - fibres, waveguides and cavities - to enhance light-matter interaction.

In this seminar I will present our work in characterising dibenzoterrylene molecules embedded in organic crystals, both at room and cryogenic temperatures. I will show how these molecules can be integrated with open-access fibre microcavities and nanophotonic devices to build photon sources, and describe our efforts to achieve this to date.