Departamento de Física Aplicada

The extraction of information from a quantum system unavoidably implies a modification of the measured system itself. It has been demonstrated recently that partial measurements can be carried out in order to extract only a portion of the information encoded in a quantum system, at the cost of inducing a limited amount of disturbance. Here we analyze experimentally the dynamics of sequential partial measurements carried out on a quantum system, focusing on the trade-off between the maximal information extractable and the disturbance. In particular we consider two different regimes of measurement, demonstrating that, by exploiting an adaptive strategy, an optimal trade-off between the two quantities can be found, as observed in a single measurement process. Such experimental result, achieved for two sequential measurements, can be extended to N measurement processes.

Recent progress in nanotechnology has allowed to fabricate new hybrid systems where a single two-level system is coupled to a mechanical nanoresonator. In such systems the quantum nature of a macroscopic degree of freedom can be revealed and manipulated. This opens up appealing perspectives for quantum information technologies, and for the exploration of quantum-classical boundary. Here we present the experimental realization of a monolithic solid-state hybrid system governed by material strain: a quantum dot is embedded within a nanowire featuring discrete mechanical resonances corresponding to flexural vibration modes. Mechanical vibrations result in a time-varying strain field that modulates the quantum dot transition energy. This approach simultaneously offers a large light extraction efficiency and a large exciton-phonon coupling strength $g_0$. By means of optical and mechanical spectroscopy, we find that $g_0/2\pi$ is nearly as large as the mechanical frequency, a criterion which defines the ultra-strong coupling regime.

The aim of the work is to investigate a non-demolishing measurement strategy which allows to maximize the amount of information extracted from an entangled quantum state, given a certain amount of induced decoherence on the whole system. The protocol can be applied to a single measurement step, as well as extended to a number N of sequential measurements. Furthermore we demonstrate that by implementing a sequence of non-demolishing measurement on the state, it is still possible to achieve a strategy which leads to an optimal trade off between knowledge and decoherence induced.

Nanostructures (nanotubes, nanowires, etc.) have been the object of intense theoretical and experimental investigations in recent years. Among these structures, helical nanosprings or nanocoils have attracted particular interest due to their special mechanical properties. In this work, we investigated structural properties of nanosprings in the Kirchhoff rod model. We derived expressions that can be used experimentally to obtain nanospring Young's modulus and Poisson's ratio values. Our results also might explain why the presence of catalytic particles is so important in nanostructure growth.

ABSTRACT Recently, classical elasticity theory for thin sheets was used to demonstrate the existence of a universal structural behavior describing the confinement of sheets inside cylindrical tubes. However, this kind of formalism was derived to describe macroscopic systems. A natural question is whether this behavior still holds at nanoscale. In this work, we have investigated through molecular dynamics simulations the structural behavior of graphene and boron nitride single layers confined into nanotubes. Our results show that the class of universality observed at macroscale is no longer observed at nanoscale. The origin of this discrepancy is addressed in terms of the relative importance of forces and energies at macro and nano scales.