Professor Jonathan Matthews
MSci(Bristol), PhD, MSc(Bristol), MSc(Bristol), PhD(Bristol)
Current positions
Professor of Quantum Photonics
School of Physics
Contact
Press and media
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Research interests
Integrated quantum photonics. Quantum technologies have tremendous potential to benefit society. But their benefits will only be felt if we establish a pathway to manufacture devices that can exquisitely control and measure quantum phenomena at high volume — meanwhile quantum computers will require an extremely high volume of underpinning quantum devices just to build one useful quantum computer. Integrated photonics is one potential pathway to deliver this, and I have been working in this field since it’s beginning, including demonstrating how to manipulate quantum states of light on chip (e.g. [Nature Photonics 3 (6), 346 (2009), Nature photonics 12 (9), 534-539 (2018)]) with electrical control which enables programmable devices such as quantum walk-based processor chips [Science Advances 7 (9), eabb8375(2021). More recently we have been further increasing functionality of photonic and quantum photonic devices such as dual-material photonic temperature sensors [Applied Physics Letters 121 (26) (2022)], heterogeneous integration of foundry-photonics with nano-diamond [ACS Photonics 10 (9), 3302–3309 (2023)]and electronic photonic integration for ultra-fast homodyne detectors for measuring quantum light [Nature Photonics 15 (1), 11-15 (2021), Science Advances 10 (20), eadk6890 (2024)].
Quantum metrology, sensing and imaging. From photography to the ultra-precise interferometers used to detect gravitational waves, light has proven to be a fantastic way to quantify our surroundings. Quantum mechanics defines the limit in quality of optical measurements. For example, the precision that laser interferometers can measure subtle changes in distance is limited by shot noise. By careful engineering of quantum properties of light — e.g. single photons, entanglement and squeezing — we know that we can surpass previously understood "limits" in precision measurement. Such quantum-enhanced techniques in optical measurement have the potential to impact whenever precision measurement with light is deployed, from healthcare to precision manufacture. And underpinning such proposals is some really interesting physics and fantastic challenges in optics and photonics engineering. We have been exploring using single photons to perform sub shot noise absorption spectroscopy, applied to discriminate Haemoglobin samples [New J. Phys. 19 023013 (2017)], sub shot noise microscopy [Optics express 27 (21), 30810-30818 (2019)], Hong-Ou-Mandel microscopy [Physical Review A 108 (2), 023726 (2023)] and quantum sensing experiments with bright quantum optical probes [Physical Review Applied 16 (4), 044031 (2021)].
Quantum Walks. The random walk has proven to be a useful model for computational physics. Perhaps most famously exemplified by the "drunken sailor" or Galton's board, the general random walk describes stochastic motion of particles around a descretised space, giving rise to descriptions of e.g. Brownian motion and population genetics. The quantum mechanical analogue of this idea is the "quantum walk" — here the particles still move around a discretised space, but can move in superposition giving rise to vastly different dynamics to its classical counterpart due to wave-like interreference. Many different types of quantum walk have been devised and can be found in the literature. Their applications include use as a model for coherent transport in other quantum systems, as an approach to forms of quantum computation and as an aid to proving approaches to universal quantum computation (when e.g. nonlinearities are included). My work in this area has focused on optical implementations of quantum walks, including most simulation with a primitive optical quantum processor: Nature Communications 7, Article number: 11511 (2016).
Projects and supervisions
Research projects
Monolithic generation & detection of squeezed light in Silicon Nitride Photonics (Mono-Squeeze) EP/X016218/1
Principal Investigator
Managing organisational unit
School of PhysicsDates
01/01/2024 to 31/12/2026
Monolithic generation & detection of squeezed light in Silicon Nitride Photonics (Mono-Squeeze) EP/X016218/1
Principal Investigator
Managing organisational unit
School of PhysicsDates
01/01/2024 to 31/12/2026
Monolithic generation & detection of squeezed light in Silicon Nitride Photonics (Mono-Squeeze) EP/X016218/1
Principal Investigator
Managing organisational unit
School of PhysicsDates
01/01/2024 to 31/12/2026
8101 H2020-MSCA-IF-2019 (892242) QIIQI Sabine Wollmann
Principal Investigator
Managing organisational unit
School of PhysicsDates
01/03/2021 to 28/02/2023
8101 Newton International Fellowships 2020 Rubino
Principal Investigator
Managing organisational unit
School of PhysicsDates
01/03/2021 to 28/02/2023
Thesis supervisions
Overcoming Practical Limitations to Realise Photonic Quantum-Enhanced Measurements
Supervisors
Resources for Integrated Quantum Sensing in the Mid-infrared
Supervisors
High bandwidth homodyne detection for integrated quantum optics
Supervisors
Engineering quantum light-matter interactions in solid-state platforms
Supervisors
Variational Quantum Algorithms with Large-Scale Integrated Photonics
Supervisors
Quantum random number generators in integrated photonics
Supervisors
Quantum Metrology with Bright Squeezed Light
Supervisors
Suppression of Noise in Classical and Quantum Optics
Supervisors
Phase sensitive amplification for integrated quantum photonics
Supervisors
Publications
Recent publications
17/05/2024A Bi-CMOS electronic photonic integrated circuit quantum light detector
Science Advances
Heterogeneous Integration of Solid-State Quantum Systems with a Foundry Photonics Platform
ACS Photonics
Sub-𝜇m axial precision depth imaging with entangled two-color Hong-Ou-Mandel microscopy
Physical Review A
Fidelity estimation of quantum states on a silicon photonic chip
Fidelity estimation of quantum states on a silicon photonic chip
GHz configurable photon pair generation from a silicon nonlinear interferometer
GHz configurable photon pair generation from a silicon nonlinear interferometer
Thesis
Multi-photon quantum information science and technology in integrated optics
Supervisors
Award date
01/01/2011