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Andreas Wallucks

Publications and source records attributed to Andreas Wallucks.

10 recordsLinked to original sources

Co-Enrichment of Proteins in Extracellular Vesicles

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are cell-derived secretions that mediate tissue homeostasis and intercellular communication through their diverse cargos, such as proteins. Distinct EV biogenesis pathways suggest specific association and co-enrichment of proteins sharing a biogenesis pathway, and non-association and co-depletion of proteins segregated into distinct pathways. Yet these associations elude conventional protein expression or co-expression measurements. Here, we propose and define pairwise protein co-enrichment (CoEn) to quantify whether a given protein is co-enriched or co-depleted with another protein relative to its overall expression. We measure CoEn, and differential CoEn (dCoEn) between a stimulus and a reference condition, of up to 240 protein pairs in EVs using antibody microarrays. We validate CoEn by modulating well-known EV biogenesis pathways, and find that dCoEn quantifies expected changes between perturbed and reference conditions while uncovering new ones; CoEn and dCoEn in three model cell lines and parental and organotropic breast cancer progeny cell lines reveals both preserved and variable CoEn that may warrant further studies. Collectively, our result suggest that CoEn reflects and illuminates cell physiology and EV biogenies, is readily measurable, and could further serve as quality control in EV biomanufacturing as well as underpin new EV biomarkers.

q-bio.QM

Optomechanical quantum teleportation

Quantum teleportation, the faithful transfer of an unknown input state onto a remote quantum system, is a key component in long distance quantum communication protocols and distributed quantum computing. At the same time, high frequency nano-optomechanical systems hold great promise as nodes in a future quantum network, operating on-chip at low-loss optical telecom wavelengths with long mechanical lifetimes. Recent demonstrations include entanglement between two resonators, a quantum memory and microwave to optics transduction. Despite these successes, quantum teleportation of an optical input state onto a long-lived optomechanical memory is an outstanding challenge. Here we demonstrate quantum teleportation of a polarization-encoded optical input state onto the joint state of a pair of nanomechanical resonators. Our protocol also allows for the first time to store and retrieve an arbitrary qubit state onto a dual-rail encoded optomechanical quantum memory. This work demonstrates the full functionality of a single quantum repeater node, and presents a key milestone towards applications of optomechanical systems as quantum network nodes.

quant-ph

Silicon anisotropy in a bi-dimensional optomechanical cavity

In this work, we study the effects of mechanical anisotropy in a 2D optomechanical crystal geometry. We fabricate and measure devices with different orientations, showing the dependence of the mechanical spectrum and the optomechanical coupling with the relative angle of the device to the crystallography directions of silicon. Our results show that the device orientation strongly affects its mechanical band structure, which makes the devices more susceptible to fabrication imperfections. Finally, we show that our device is compatible with cryogenic measurements reaching ground state occupancy of 0.2 phonons at mK temperature.

quant-ph

Proposal for optomechanical quantum teleportation

We present a novel discrete-variable quantum teleportation scheme using pulsed optomechanics. In our proposal, we demonstrate how an unknown optical input state can be transferred onto the joint state of a pair of mechanical oscillators, without physically interacting with one another. We further analyze how experimental imperfections will affect the fidelity of the teleportation and highlight how our scheme can be realized in current state-of-the-art optomechanical systems.

quant-ph

Microwave-to-optics conversion using a mechanical oscillator in its quantum groundstate

Conversion between signals in the microwave and optical domains is of great interest both for classical telecommunication, as well as for connecting future superconducting quantum computers into a global quantum network. For quantum applications, the conversion has to be both efficient, as well as operate in a regime of minimal added classical noise. While efficient conversion has been demonstrated using mechanical transducers, they have so far all operated with a substantial thermal noise background. Here, we overcome this limitation and demonstrate coherent conversion between GHz microwave signals and the optical telecom band with a thermal background of less than one phonon. We use an integrated, on-chip electro-opto-mechanical device that couples surface acoustic waves driven by a resonant microwave signal to an optomechanical crystal featuring a 2.7 GHz mechanical mode. We initialize the mechanical mode in its quantum groundstate, which allows us to perform the transduction process with minimal added thermal noise, while maintaining an optomechanical cooperativity >1, so that microwave photons mapped into the mechanical resonator are effectively upconverted to the optical domain. We further verify the preservation of the coherence of the microwave signal throughout the transduction process.

quant-ph

A quantum memory at telecom wavelengths

Nanofabricated mechanical resonators are gaining significant momentum among potential quantum technologies due to their unique design freedom and independence from naturally occurring resonances. With their functionality being widely detached from material choice, they constitute ideal tools to be used as transducers, i.e. intermediaries between different quantum systems, and as memory elements in conjunction with quantum communication and computing devices. Their capability to host ultra-long lived phonon modes is particularity attractive for non-classical information storage, both for future quantum technologies as well as for fundamental tests of physics. Here we demonstrate such a mechanical quantum memory with an energy decay time of $T_1\approx2$ ms, which is controlled through an optical interface engineered to natively operate at telecom wavelengths. We further investigate the coherence of the memory, equivalent to the dephasing $T_2^*$ for qubits, which exhibits a power dependent value between 15 and 112 $μ$s. This demonstration is enabled by a novel optical scheme to create a superposition state of $\rvert{0}\rangle+\rvert{1}\rangle$ mechanical excitations, with an arbitrary ratio between the vacuum and single phonon components.

quant-ph

An optomechanical Bell test

Over the past few decades, experimental tests of Bell-type inequalities have been at the forefront of understanding quantum mechanics and its implications. These strong bounds on specific measurements on a physical system originate from some of the most fundamental concepts of classical physics - in particular that properties of an object are well defined independent of measurements (realism) and only affected by local interactions (locality). The violation of these bounds unambiguously shows that the measured system does not behave classically, void of any assumption on the validity of quantum theory. It has also found applications in quantum technologies for certifying the suitability of devices for generating quantum randomness, distributing secret keys and for quantum computing. Here we report on the violation of a Bell inequality involving a massive, macroscopic mechanical system. We create light-matter entanglement between the vibrational motion of two silicon optomechanical oscillators, each comprising approx. $10^{10}$ atoms, and two optical modes. This state allows us to violate a Bell inequality by more than 4 standard deviations, directly confirming the non-classical behavior of our optomechanical system under the fair sampling assumption.

quant-ph

Remote quantum entanglement between two micromechanical oscillators

Entanglement, an essential feature of quantum theory that allows for inseparable quantum correlations to be shared between distant parties, is a crucial resource for quantum networks. Of particular importance is the ability to distribute entanglement between remote objects that can also serve as quantum memories. This has been previously realized using systems such as warm and cold atomic vapours, individual atoms and ions, and defects in solid-state systems. Practical communication applications require a combination of several advantageous features, such as a particular operating wavelength, high bandwidth and long memory lifetimes. Here we introduce a purely micromachined solid-state platform in the form of chip-based optomechanical resonators made of nanostructured silicon beams. We create and demonstrate entanglement between two micromechanical oscillators across two chips that are separated by 20 centimetres. The entangled quantum state is distributed by an optical field at a designed wavelength near 1550 nanometres. Therefore, our system can be directly incorporated in a realistic fibre-optic quantum network operating in the conventional optical telecommunication band. Our results are an important step towards the development of large-area quantum networks based on silicon photonics.

quant-ph

Platform for measurements of the Casimir force between two superconductors

Several experimental demonstrations of the Casimir force between two closely spaced bodies have been realized over the past two decades. Extending the theory to incorporate the behavior of the force between two superconducting films close to their transition temperature has resulted in competing predictions. To date, no experiment exists that can test these theories, partly due to the difficulty in aligning two superconductors in close proximity, while still allowing for a temperature-independent readout of the arising force between them. Here we present an on-chip platform based on an optomechanical cavity in combination with a grounded superconducting capacitor, which overcomes these challenges and opens up the possibility to probe modifications to the Casimir effect between two closely spaced, freestanding superconductors as they transition into a superconducting state. We also perform preliminary force measurements that demonstrate the capability of these devices to probe the interplay between two widely measured quantum effects: Casimir forces and superconductivity.

quant-ph

Hanbury Brown and Twiss interferometry of single phonons from an optomechanical resonator

Nano- and micromechanical solid-state quantum devices have become a focus of attention. Reliably generating nonclassical states of their motion is of interest both for addressing fundamental questions about macroscopic quantum phenomena and for developing quantum technologies in the domains of sensing and transduction. We used quantum optical control techniques to conditionally generate single-phonon Fock states of a nanomechanical resonator. We performed a Hanbury Brown and Twiss-type experiment that verified the nonclassical nature of the phonon state without requiring full state reconstruction. Our result establishes purely optical quantum control of a mechanical oscillator at the single-phonon level.

quant-ph