Huge congratulations to CDT alumni & QET Labs Research Associate Cyril Torre, who was awarded a QuantIC Doctoral Prize to continue working in Carrie Weidner's group, which provides funding for 12 months. Cyril tells us about the project he'll be working on going forward:

"The project focuses on investigating the quantum state of light produced via interacting light with an atomic vapour cell, a compact cell filled with rubidium-87 atoms at room temperature (or hotter). Polarisation squeezed light can be generated from polarisation self-rotation and can be used alongside the Faraday effect to sense a magnetic field. Combined with an imaging technique using a digital micromirror device, pattern of light can be sent to the medium to spatially resolve the magnetic field surrounding the cell. Due to the noise reduction granted by the quantum nature of the probe, quantum enhancement can be achieved on the sensitivity on the magnetic field measurement, by lowering down the noise floor via quantum correlations. The quantum nature of the probe will be investigated to achieve a sensitivity and precision within the measurements below the optical shot-noise limit, corresponding to measurements that classical resources with the same brightness cannot reach.

The end goal of this project is a compact and functional magnetometer performing at the single-photon level where noise reduction from the squeezed state can achieve microscopy imaging for magnetometry below the optical shot-noise limit. This will demonstrate a proof-of-principal precursor and can be implemented in future compact devices outperforming current technology using classical resources."