Colloquium: Zheshen Zhang - Entanglement-Enhanced Quantum Sensing and Communication

Quantum information science (QIS) gives rise to unprecedented capabilities in sensing, computing, and communication. In this talk, I will first provide an overview of QIS and then describe our recent work on using entanglement, a unique but fragile quantum phenomenon, to improve the performance of sensing. I will describe our quantum-illumination-based target-detection experiment in a highly lossy and noisy environment. The experiment demonstrates an entanglement-enabled signal-to-noise ratio improvement over the optimum classical sensing scheme. Such a technology would find applications in high-resolution material characterization and biomedical imaging. The second part of the talk is dedicated to quantum communication, a technology offeringunconditional security vouchsafed by the laws of physics. The demonstrated rates of quantum communication, however, fall far short of what classical communication affords. I will introduce our recent broadband quantum communication experiment that achieves a 1.3 Gbit/s rate over a channel with a 10-dB loss (equivalent to 50-km fiber transmission), a ~1000-fold improvement over state-of-the-art.Before closing, I will introduce the interdisciplinary quantum information research and engineering (INQUIRE) testbed currently under construction at the University of Arizona. The INQUIRE testbed will bridge QIS with diverse fields to facilitate future research and development of ultraprecise and non-invasive sensing and imaging, high-performance computing, and quantum communication networks.