Starting in May of 2024, I participated in an 8-month long Co-op internship at Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Basic Research Laboratories (BRL) in Atsugi, Kanagawa in Japan.
As a Quantum Communication Research Intern, I self-directed optical fiber-based three photon quantum interference experiments. The goal of my research was to realize quantum entanglement between multiple users, in an optical fiber-based quantum network.
While I am unable to speak on the specifics of my research topic as the results are not yet public, I can confirm that I fulfilled all KPIs by significantly improving our system through optimizations on filtering and procedure, allowing us to produce quantum-correlated photon pairs more efficiently.
Many of these improvements were made possible due to my independent work in optimizing experimental procedures, ultimately reducing experimental run time by up to 80%. Where data would have otherwise been painstakingly taken through hand adjustment of experimental parameters, I optimized this procedure by designing automated experimental procedures through Jupyter notebooks, remotely controlling equipment using PyVISA and PySerial to communicate through the RS232 protocol. Where this was not possible, I used NI LabVIEW to supplement my Python scripts.
Through this experience, I gained valuable insight into research procedure and experiment design, in addition to the Japanese work environment. I gained valuable connections to others in the field, and gained an interest in quantum communication and computing.