Second biannual PhoG meeting at Heriot Watt University 
Edinburgh, Scotland, 4-5th December 2019
The second biannual meeting of the PhoG QT Flagship project was hosted by the group of Robert Thomson at Heriot Watt University. We had two days of formal and informal discussions, lab tours and information exchange, and exciting directions of the project for the next year were discussed.

Natalia's graduation ceremony to rank of Professor  
St Andrews, December 3 2019
Natalia attended the Winter graduation ceremony at the University of St Andrews to celebrate her promotion to Professor. Well done!

QUISCO September 2019  
St Andrews, Scotland, September 4 2019
The second QUISCO meeting of the year was held in the School of Physics and Astronomy, University of St Andrews, on 4th September 2019 and was organised by the Quantum Information group. From St Andrews, Bernd Braunecker, Chris Hooley and Matthew Thornton gave talks, while Viktor and Natalia were instrumental in organising the day. Participants also attended from Heriot Watt University, Strathclyde University, University of Glasgow, University of Edinburgh and University of Oxford.

ICSSUR 2019  
Madrid, Spain, June 17th - 21st 2019
Natalia and Pablo both attended ICSSUR (International Conference on Squeezed States and Uncertainty Relations) 2019. Natalia gave a talk about the PhoG project, and Pablo gave a talk entitled “Kings of Quantumness for rotation estimation,” based on work on polarization, which he completed during his PhD.

First biannual PhoG meeting at University of Paderborn 
Paderborn, Germany, 7th June 2019
The first biannual meeting of our QT Flagship project has been hosted by the group of Christine Silberhorn, University of Paderborn, Germany. Important decisions have been made regarding design drivers of PhoG devices and their application in imaging. The hospitality of the Integrated Quantum Optics group was highly appreciated, and we enjoyed wonderful possibilities for formal and informal discussions. The meeting was hosted alongside with the 26th Central European Workshop on Quantum Optics, where our group presented a poster on modeling of the PhoG devices. More information about the PhoG project may be found on its project website.

ICQOQI 2019 
Minsk, Belarus, 13th - 17th May 2019
Natalia, Matt and Viktor attended the XVI International Conference on Quantum Optics and Quantum Information in Minsk, Belarus. Natalia presented a talk entitled “Coherent Diffusive Photonics: quantum engineering by loss,” on recent developments related to the PhoG project. Matt presented a talk called “Continuous-variable Quantum Digital Signatures over insecure channels,” and Viktor presented a poster “Ancilla controlled quantum computation for discrete and continuous-variable hybrid systems.”

Upcoming: Next generation of analogue gravity experiments 
London, 9-10 December 2019
Next generation of analogue gravity experiments brings together scientists who reproduce effects of general relavity in the laboratory. From the foundational ideas of the research programme to its latest experimental breakthroughs and their philosophical implications, participants will disucss the present state of the field and possible routes to the future.
The meeting has been selected by the Royal Society to form part of its 2019-2020 Scientific Programme.

EQTC Grenoble 2019 
February 2019
Natalia and Matt attended the first European Quantum Technologies conference in Grenoble, France. Natalia presented a talk entitled "Sub-Poissonian Photon Gun by Coherent Diffusive Photonics", and Matt presented a poster entitled "Efficient generation of sub-Poissonian states via coherent diffusive photonics". We had good discussions with PhoG collaborators David and Jacopo from Heriot Watt University.

PhoG kickoff meeting 
November 2018
The group hosted the kickoff meeting for the EU Flagship Quantum Technologies project, PhoG, involving collaborators from Heriot Watt University, the B. I. Stepanov Institute of Physics, the University of Paderborn and CSEM. We enjoyed a successful day of discussion and an exciting start to the project.

Maxime wins Springer Thesis Prize  
May 2018
Maxime Jaquet has successfully defended his thesis in 2017. His work on the calculation of Hawking emission spectra gives insight into the mode conversion process and will lead the experimental implementation. Maxime was awarded the Springer Thesis Prize for his "excellent research and its careful documentation" in 2018! His thesis has been published as a book: Negative Frequency at the Horizon.

ICNFP 2017 Crete  
August 2017
The Quantum Optics and Quantum Information Groups enjoyed attending the Continuous Variables and Relativistic Quantum Information workshop at ICNFP 2017 in Kolymbari, Crete. The workshop was chaired by Natalia and Friderich. Maxime presented a talk entitled “Mixing of positive and negative frequency waves at the optical horizon” and Matt presented a talk entitled “Gigahertz quantum digital signatures using telecommunication technologies.”

Maxime's defense
3 June 2017
Maxime defended his PhD Thesis, “Negative Frequency at the Horizon: Scattering of Light at a Refractive Index Front” with a panel composed of Prof. Bill Unruh, the founder of the field of analogue horizon science, and Dr Donatella Cassettari. Following on getting his PhD, he was thrown into the pond in the central courtyard of the school - a St Andrews tradition!

Photon-pair generation in a silicon integrated optical chip for use in quantum computing  
Seminar Talk
Dr Gary F. Sinclair
Centre for Quantum Photonics, University of Bristol
24 March 2017, 3pm
Integrated silicon photonics offers a versatile platform for the construction of complex optical experiments on a chip-scale device. Advanced fabrication techniques allow the integration of large numbers of optical components on a single chip, eventually it is hoped, alongside control electronics. Aside from allowing large scale optical integration, silicon also offers a platform for undertaking experiments in nonlinear optics. In particular, the generation of photon pairs through the nonlinear process of spontaneous four-wave mixing (SFWM) has been suggested as a potential source of heralded single-photons for a future optical quantum computer. It is our aim (Centre for Quantum Photonics, Bristol, UK) to construct such an optical quantum computer. Here I present theoretical and experimental work we have undertaken to model and evaluate the performance of our heralded single-photon sources and discuss their suitability for use in a quantum computer.

Quantum fingerprinting   Seminar Talk
Prof Norbert Lütkenhaus
University of Waterloo, Canada (SUPA Distinguished Visitor)
14 March 2017, 2pm
Colloquim-style talk on quantum fingerprinting, which involves a bit of motivation of quantum information and communication complexity, and some basics about quantum information. (Free format, allowing to ask questions in between and have some discussion.)

Quantum cryptography with many users   Colloquium
Prof Dagmar Bruss
Integrated Quantum Optics, Applied Physics, University of Paderborn, Germany
3 February 2017, 10am
The laws of quantum mechanics allow for quantum cryptography, i.e. the distribution of a secret random key between two parties. When generalising this idea to the situation where more than two parties want to establish a common secret key, one can use certain multipartite entangled states as a resource. In the security analysis for this multi-user scheme some intricate new features arise and will be discussed. Finally, it is shown that our protocol for multipartite quantum cryptography offers a speed-up in certain quantum networks with bottlenecks.

Visit of Professor Bill Unruh
19-21 October 2016
The Quantum Optics Group invited Professor Bill Unruh, from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, and the Perimeter Institute, Waterloo, Canada, for an academic visit via the SUPA Distinguished Lecturer Programme. A grant was thus secured to fund Bill’s visit and stay. He enjoyed being shown around the lab and demonstrated the effect of Frequency Shifting at the Optical Horizon in a Photonic Crystal Fibre. The visit was very fruitful, with discussions ranging from experimental considerations to our and his latest work on the analytics of spontaneous emission at a refractive index front moving in a dispersive dielectric.

Experimental Black-Hole Evaporation   Special Colloquium
Prof William Unruh
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
21 October 2016, 10 am
“While at first believed to be a purely gravitational effect, in 1981 I showed, in a paper with the same title as this talk, but with a final question mark, that other systems with horizons for various fields also had thermal emission. Over the past 10 years, experiments have been carried out to see this quantum and thermal effect of horizons. This talk will review the arguments and the recent experimental work.”

Large Optical Quantum States and their Characterization   Seminar Talk
Dr Georg Harder
Integrated Quantum Optics, Applied Physics, University of Paderborn, Germany
7 June 2016, 3:30 pm
Parametric down-conversion (PDC) is an established source for quantum states of light, from single photons to bright intensity-correlated beams. Nevertheless, the generation of well controlled states is very challenging and their characterization experimentally demanding.

Stephen Gethins MP visits the Quantum Optics Laboratory
Stephen Gethins MP
Friday 8th April 2016
After having been selected as a finalist to the 2016 edition of SET for Britain, Maxime invited the MP for North-East Fife, Mr Stephen Gethins, to visit the Quantum Optics Group facilities in the School of Physics and Astronomy. Stephen spent an afternoon with the Group, and was shown around the lab where the effects of Optical Cherenkov Radiation in a Photonic Crystal Fibre and of Frequency Shifting at the Optical Horizon were demonstrated to him. He was happy to put his hands on our DelMar 50fs Laser!

SET4Britain16 Competition at the House of Commons
7 March 2016
Maxime was selected as a finalist to the 2016 edition of SET for Britain. He went to the House of Commons at the UK Parliament, London, to present a poster on the science of optical horizons to the Members of Parliament.

Macroscopic Quantum Coherence
International workshop, St Andrews, 1-3 June 2015. Organiser: Natalia Korolkova
The intention of the workshop was to bring together experts on quantum coherence of macroscopic systems, in particular on continuous variable quantum optics and opto-mechanics, in an informal setting for networking and discussion of new ideas on fundamental issues as well as applications in quantum technologies.
The workshop was kindly sponsored by IMPP (International Max Planck Partnership).

Integrated Quantum Information Technology
International research workshop (EU-FET), 23-27 September 2013, Corfu, Greece
Organisers: E. Ilichev (IPHT Jena), N. Korolkova (Univ St Andrews), K. Mølmer (Univ Aarhus), Ch. Wunderlich (Uni Siegen)
The iQIT workshop aimed to bring together experimental and theoretical researchers interested in inter-connecting different quantum systems for quantum information science, in particular solid-state and atom- optical devices.

17^th Central European Workshop on Quantum Optics
The 17th CEWQO was held in St Andrews, Scotland, UK, on 6-11 June 2010.
Organisers: Natalia Korolkova and Ulf Leonhardt
A series of high level workshops provided a forum for all aspects of quantum optics, including the foundations of quantum mechanics, quantum communication & information, matter waves, and quantum-optics-related topics in atomic, molecular, and optical physics.
The Proceedings were published in Physica Scripta, Vol 2011, T143  (February 2011).