TY - JOUR AB - In the last few decades, there has been much progress on low loss waveguides, very efficient photon-number detectors and nonlinear processes. Engineered sum-frequency conversion is now at a stage where it allows operation on arbitrary temporal broadband modes, thus making the spectral degree of freedom accessible for information coding. Hereby the information is often encoded into the temporal modes of a single photon. Here, we analyse the prospect of using multi-photon states or squeezed states in different temporal modes based on integrated optics devices. We describe an analogy between mode-selective sum-frequency conversion and a network of spatial beam splitters. Furthermore, we analyse the limits on the achievable squeezing in waveguides with current technology and the loss limits in the conversion process. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Quantum technology for the 21st century’. AU - Harder, G. AU - Ansari, V. AU - Bartley, Tim AU - Brecht, Benjamin AU - Silberhorn, Christine ID - 21032 IS - 2099 JF - Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences SN - 1364-503X TI - Harnessing temporal modes for multi-photon quantum information processing based on integrated optics VL - 375 ER - TY - JOUR AB - We examine for the first time how chemically and thermally stable gold nanoparticles (NPs), prepared by a silane conjugation approach, affect both the thermal and the electro-optical properties of a nematic liquid crystal (LC), when doped at concentrations ranging from 0.25 to 7.5 wt%. We find that the octadecylsilane-conjugated gold NPs stabilize both the enantiotropic nematic and the monotropic smectic-A phases of the LC host with a maximum stabilization of 2 ° C for the nematic and 3.5 ° C for the smectic-A phases for the mixture containing 1 wt% of the silanized particles. The same mixture shows the lowest values for the Fréedericksz transition threshold voltage and the highest value for the dielectric anisotropy. Generally, all NP-containing mixtures, except mixtures with NP concentrations exceeding 5 wt%, reduce the threshold voltage, increase the dielectric anisotropy and reduce both rise and decay time; the latter particularly at temperatures at least 10 ° C below the isotropic–nematic phase transition on cooling. AU - Mirzaei, Javad AU - Urbanski, Martin AU - Kitzerow, Heinz-Siegfried AU - Hegmann, Torsten ID - 39720 IS - 1988 JF - Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences KW - General Physics and Astronomy KW - General Engineering KW - General Mathematics SN - 1364-503X TI - Hydrophobic gold nanoparticles via silane conjugation: chemically and thermally robust nanoparticles as dopants for nematic liquid crystals VL - 371 ER -