High efficiency quantum photon sources, Quandela, QuanTour ft. Pascale Senellart-Mardon

In Other Words

Two projects: (1) the 2008 technique to optically locate a randomly-placed quantum dot and etch a cavity pillar exactly around it, a turning point that made devices controllable; and (2) realising a quantum dot can emit ‘half a photon’ (a superposition of one photon and no photon) via coherent control, explaining years of strange fluctuating detector signals.

Key Takeaways

Research director at CNRS (C2N, Paris-Saclay), Ecole Polytechnique lecturer, French Presidential Science Council and Academy of Science member, and co-founder of Quandela, she loves marrying fundamental science and industry.
Her group spent ~20 years learning to place a quantum dot precisely inside an optical cavity so it emits bright (80%), then highly indistinguishable (99.5%) single photons, the trigger for founding Quandela in 2017 (now ~100 people).
Quandela built a modular photonic quantum computer on the cloud (2022–23) needing only a wall-plug fridge; recent work: spin-entangled photon ’necklaces’ for error correction.
Insists engineering is as noble as fundamental science, each enables the other.
Was an insecure young scientist; three wishes: clone herself / more free time, slow the pace of science so people can think, better scientist–politician trust, and less gender bias.