Workshop on Single and Entangled Photons:

Sources, Detectors, Components, and Applications

Tuesday – Friday, November 3-6, 2009

Workshop Location: NIST, 325 Broadway, Boulder, Colorado

NIST and IARPA announce the fourth workshop on single-photon devices and applications, following the workshops held at NIST in 2003, NPL in 2005, and INRiM in 2007. The workshop is intended to bring together a broad range of people with interests in single-photon technology and applications. We will survey the current state and latest developments of single-photon detectors and sources with a focus on existing limitations, deficiencies and opportunities for improvement. The focus of this workshop will include not just issues related to specific individual components, but also interface issues that arise when these components are used in concert as a system. Of additional interest is photonic entanglement, which will be addressed as a self-contained workshop on the last day of the meeting. The generation, use, and detection of photonic entanglement will be discussed with a focus on entire end-to-end system efficiency. Both experimental and theoretical efforts to maximize benefit of entanglement in applications ranging from remote sensing to fundamental physics tests are of interest. Separate 3-day and 1-day registrations will be accommodated.

The program is now available along with abstracts. The registration deadline is Oct. 29, 2009 and info on accommodations is available. Please send any questions about the conference or program to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

A special issue of an appropriate journal will be produced as was done in the previous workshops.

Topics and Issues of interest:

Single-Photon components: (Nov. 3 – 5)

Detector issues: quantum efficiency, spectral coverage, spatial uniformity, speed, dark counts, dead time, photon-number resolution, pulse discrimination, timing jitter, array configurations, stability, cost

Source issues: efficiency of generation, efficiency of collection, purity of single-photon states, mode engineering, entanglement generation

Photon manipulation:

low-loss high-speed switches for single-photon applications

mode matching, mode engineering, pulse-shaping, and efficient coupling

Metrology:

detectors, sources, components, and systems

Applications of Single Photon Technology:

Measurements enabled by single-photon detection (cross-disciplinary such as astrophysics, nuclear physics, biology, etc.)

Measurements enabled by single-photon sources (quantum metrology)

Photonic Entanglement Technology and Applications: (Nov. 6)

Experimental: production and preservation of high-purity photonic entanglement from generation to delivery and detection

Theoretical: measures of nonclassicality; correlated, entangled, and factorizable state source designs for applications such as sensing, communication, or fundamental physics tests, given realistic source and detector backgrounds