Abstract: Quantum mechanics is a cornerstone of modern physics. Just as the 19th century was called the Machine Age and the 20th century the Information Age, the 21st century promises to go down in history as the Quantum Age. Quantum Computing promises unprecedented speed in solving certain classes of problems while Quantum Cryptography promises unconditional security in communications. In this talk, I will discuss the world of single and entangled photons and also discuss ongoing work towards quantum communications, quantum information and quantum computing in our Quantum Information and Computing lab at the Raman Research Institute, Bengaluru, India. The year 2022 is indeed special for scientists working with applications of photonic quantum science and technologies with the Nobel Prize in Physics having been awarded jointly to Alain Aspect, John F. Clauser and Anton Zeilinger “for experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science”. I will also briefly describe their Nobel prize winning contributions as a part of my talk. I will end with our broad vision for the future, which includes establishment of long distance secure quantum communications in India and beyond involving satellite based, fibre based as well as integrated photonics based approaches towards the global quantum internet. 

Speaker Bio: Urbasi Sinha is a Professor at the Raman Research Institute in Bangalore, India. She is heading the Quantum Information and Computing (QuIC) laboratory at RRI. Prof. Sinha is a Simons Emmy Noether Fellow at the Perimeter Institute, Canada as well as an associate faculty member at the Institute for Quantum Computing (IQC), University of Waterloo, Canada, and the Centre for Quantum Information and Quantum Control, University of Toronto, Canada. She completed her PhD at Cambridge University, UK, on experiments in high temperature Superconductivity. She completed her M.Sc in Physics also from Cambridge. She has been a Gates Cambridge scholar during her Ph.D and a Nehru-Chevening scholar during her masters. She was a post-doctoral research associate in the Cavendish labs, Cambridge as well as at IQC Canada. Her lab at RRI specializes in experiments on photonic quantum information processing including quantum computing and quantum communication, primarily using single and entangled photons. She is heading India’s first project on satellite based secure quantum communications. Her scientific recognitions include the Homi Bhabha Fellowship in the year 2017 as well as the 2018 ICTP-ICO Gallieno Denardo Award in Optics. She was recognised as one of Asia’s Top 100 scientists by the Asian Scientist for the year 2019 and has also been awarded the Simon’s Emmy Noether Fellowship at the Perimeter Institute, Canada. In August 2020, she led the two member winning team as a mentor, at the World Skills International Competition in Quantum Technology at the BRICS Future Skills Challenge, organised by the Russian Quantum Centre in Moscow, Russia with competitors from several countries worldwide. She won the ASSOCHAM Women in Cyber: Making a Difference award in the category “Cyber – Leading from the front” in 2021. Website: https://www.rri.res.in/~quic