Quantum in the Crowd

TU Delft and KTH's Val Zwiller opens day three of BQIT Bristol awoke in a thick fog on Friday morning, but by the time the first session was in full swing, we were back under the glorious BQIT sunshine, looking down on the harbourside from our venue, MShed. Kicking off the day was Val Zwiller of TU Delft & KTH Stockholm, giving a history and outlook for superconducting nanowire single photon detectors (SNSPDS), with an emphasis on the importance of time resolution - photon purity will appear much reduced if measured without appropriate time resolution! QET Labs' Dondu Sahin followed up with Bristol's plans for near unity efficiency, ring-coupled SNSPDs, which have the added bonus of precise wavelength tunability, and Anthony Laing (also from QET Labs), with his talk on photonic simulations of molecular quantum dynamics. In the next session, "Quantum Communications and Networks", Xiao Yuan presented University of Oxford's latest quantum algorithm

QTEC's Andy Collins opens the second day of BQIT with his industry session talk The second day of the Bristol Quantum Information Technologies Workshop was yet another day of golden sunshine and intriguing discussions. Talks ranged from industry perspectives and future funding to solid state systems and quantum dots, as well as a poster session generously sponsored by KETS covering broad directions of academic research. The morning proceedings began with talks on industry activity over the past year. Andrew Collins from the University of Bristol's Quantum Technology and Enterprise Centre (QTEC) spoke about some of the highs and lows of quantum startups, busting some myths and ending with a call for people to take part in the upcoming Quantum Start Up Week this July. Next was Zurich Instruments' Jelena Trbovic, highlighting how their amplifiers and arbitrary waveform generators can be used for fast characterising and control of superconducting qubits. And before brea

QET Labs' director John Rarity opens the 2018 BQIT workshop In accordance with the precedent set last year, the Bristol Quantum Information Technologies Workshop kicked off today at the M Shed with the start of what is forecast to be three days of glorious sunshine. The weather was matched by optimism in the days talks, which were spread over sessions in quantum communications, quantum theory, quantum photonics and quantum enhanced measurement and control. QET Labs director John Rarity opened the conference and gave the first talk "next generation communication networks", summarising QET Labs’ activity in the area. Chip scale QKD pioneered by KETS - a recent Bristol spin-out - was a highlight, as well as plans for a sub £1M QKD satellite mission. Next up, Christoph Marquardt of the Max Planck Institute of the Science of Light reviewed the state of QKD around the world, and outlined their plans to build global hybrid QKD networks, utilising satellites, drones, and f