Arya prediction – 21 century communication

Los Alamos National Laboratory has produced the first known material capable of single-photon emission at room temperature and at telecommunications wavelengths. These carbon nanotube quantum light emitters may be important for optically-based quantum information processing and information security, while also being of significant interest for ultrasensitive sensing, metrology and imaging needs and as photon sources for fundamental advances in quantum optics studies.

Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-07-single-photon-emitter-quantum-info-processing.html#jCp

Why century 21?

In optical communication, critical information ranging from a credit card number to national security data is transmitted in streams of laser pulses. However, the information transmitted in this manner can be stolen by splitting out a few photons (the quantum of light) of the laser pulse. This type of eavesdropping could be prevented by encoding bits of information on quantum mechanical states (e.g. polarization state) of single photons. The ability to generate single photons on demand holds the key to realization of such a communication scheme

Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2015-09-nanotubes-path-quantum-technologies.html#jCp

Why the prediction?  

Ideally, a single photon emitter will provide both room-temperature operation and emission at telecom wavelengths, but this has remained an elusive goal. Up to now, materials that could act as single photon emitters in these wavelengths had to be cooled to liquid helium temperatures, rendering them much less useful for ultimate applications or scientific purposes

How done?

Force the nanotube to emit light from a single point along a nanotube, only at a defect site. The key was to limit defect levels to one per tube. One tube, one defect, one photon. . . . By emitting light only one photon at a time, one can then control the photons' quantum properties for storage, manipulation and transmission of information. Wavelength controlled by carrying tube diameter, you can make different frequency elements. Change it dynamically – tunable room temperature single photon emitter is next step. Also doable by dynamic pinching of many tubes in parallel. Hence the prediction.

How built?

This degree of control using diazonium-based chemistry, a process they used to bind an organic molecule to the nanotube's surface to serve as the defect. The diazonium reaction chemistry allowed a controllable introduction of benzene-based defects with reduced sensitivity to natural fluctuations in the surrounding environment. Importantly, the versatility of the diazonium chemistry also permitted the researchers to access the inherent tunability of nanotube emission wavelengths.