Disorder-protected quantum state transmission through helical coupled-resonator waveguides

Abstract

We predict the preservation of temporal indistinguishability of photons propagating through helical coupled-resonator optical waveguides (H-CROWs). H-CROWs exhibit a pseudospin-momentum locked dispersion, which we show suppresses on-site disorder-induced backscattering and group velocity fluctuations. We simulate numerically the propagation of two-photon wave packets, demonstrating that they exhibit almost perfect Hong–Ou–Mandel dip visibility and then can preserve their quantum coherence even in the presence of moderate disorder, in contrast with regular CROWs, which are highly sensitive to disorder. As indistinguishability is the most fundamental resource of quantum information processing, H-CROWs may find applications for the implementation of robust optical links and delay lines in the emerging quantum photonic communication and computational platforms.