Linear Optical Elements Research Articles

N-qubit universal quantum logic with a photonic qudit and O(N) linear optics elements

High-dimensional quantum units of information, or qudits, can carry more than one quantum bit of information in a single degree of freedom and can, therefore, be used to boost the performance of quantum communication and quantum computation protocols. A photon in a superposition of 2N time bins—a time-bin qudit—contains as much information as N qubits. Here, we show that N-qubit states encoded in a single time-bin qudit can be arbitrarily and deterministically generated, manipulated, and measured using a number of linear optics elements that scale linearly with N, as opposed to prior proposals of single-qudit implementation of N-qubit logic, which typically requires O(2N) elements. The simple and cost-effective implementation we propose can be used as a small-scale quantum processor. We then demonstrate a path toward scalability by interfacing distinct qudit processors to a matter qubit (atom or quantum dot spin) in an optical resonator. Such a cavity quantum electrodynamics system allows for more advanced functionalities, such as single-qubit nondemolition measurement and two-qubit gates between distinct qudits. It could also enable quantum interfaces with other matter quantum nodes in the context of quantum networks and distributed quantum computing.

Research on Intraparticle to Interparticle Entanglement Swapping Protocols

Entanglement is one of the most striking features of quantum systems, whereby its non-classical correlation is an essential resource in numerous quantum protocols. Entanglement can be divided into two categories: interparticle and intraparticle entanglement. There are both distinctions and similarities between these two kinds of entangled states. This work delves into these distinctions and similarities from the following aspects: correlation and non-locality, robustness, the mechanisms of generation and separation, and practical applications. Entanglement swapping is a technique based on quantum entanglement. As entanglement has different categories, entanglement swapping also has various types, including interparticle to interparticle and intraparticle to interparticle. Swapping protocols from intraparticle entanglement to interparticle entanglement can be applied to super quantum dense encoding, quantum information transmission, quantum teleportation, etc. Thus, this work proposes three swapping protocols, from spin–orbit intraparticle entanglement to spin–spin interparticle entanglement, based on Bell state joint measurement, the cross-Kerr medium, and linear optical elements. This work can help us better understand entanglement by analyzing the differences and similarities between the two types of entangled states. It can also enhance entanglement swapping protocols, from spin–orbit intraparticle to spin–spin interparticle entanglement, for use in quantum information transfer.

Heralded high-efficiency entanglement concentration of cluster states for photon systems with linear optics via time-delay effect

Entanglement concentration stands as a pivotal technique to safeguard against degraded fidelity in long-distance quantum communication. In this manuscript, propose ultra-efficient entanglement concentration protocols (ECPs) tailored for less-entangled two-photon cluster states and four-photon cluster states with two unknown parameters, leveraging simple linear optical elements and acute single-photon detectors. Additionally, ancillary photons, post-selection techniques, or photon-number-resolving detectors are unnecessary for complete identification of the parity-check measurement. By coordinating auxiliary time degrees of freedom and implementing multiple recycling conditions, the success of two ECPs can be heralded by detection signatures without compromising the incident qubits, thereby allowing their efficiencies to be close to 0.75, in principle. The combination of heralded detection and basic linear optical elements renders our practical ECPs accessible for experimental exploration with current technology.

Complete analysis of hyperentangled Bell state in three degrees of freedom using Kerr effect and self-assisted mechanism

We present an efficient scheme for the complete hyperentangled Bell state analysis (HBSA) of photon system with polarization and two longitudinal momentum degrees of freedom (DOFs), resorting to weak cross-Kerr nonlinearity, linear optical elements and single photon detectors. In the process of distinguishing the 64 hyperentangled Bell states in three DOFs, the self-assisted mechanism is embedded, which makes our scheme simple and realizable. Moreover, we have discussed the applications of this complete HBSA scheme for high-capacity quantum communication protocols that are based on photonic hyperentanglement in three DOFs.

Hacking coherent-one-way quantum key distribution with present-day technology

Recent results have shown that the secret-key rate of coherent-one-way (COW) quantum key distribution (QKD) scales quadratically with the system’s transmittance, thus rendering this protocol unsuitable for long-distance transmission. This was proven by using a so-called zero-error attack, which relies on an unambiguous state discrimination (USD) measurement. This type of attack allows the eavesdropper to learn the whole secret key without introducing any error. Here, we investigate the feasibility and effectiveness of zero-error attacks against COW QKD with present-day technology. For this, we introduce two practical USD receivers that can be realized with linear passive optical elements, phase-space displacement operations and threshold single-photon detectors. The first receiver is optimal with respect to its success probability, while the second one can impose stronger restrictions on the protocol’s performance with faulty eavesdropping equipment. Our findings suggest that zero-error attacks could break the security of COW QKD even assuming realistic experimental conditions.

Complete four-dimensional Bell state measurement using weak cross-Kerr nonlinearity

In this paper, we present an efficient scheme for the complete analysis of the four-dimensional Bell state of the photon system in the path degree of freedom, resorting to the weak cross-Kerr nonlinearity and linear optics. In our scheme, the measurements on two probe coherent states are used for obtaining the bit information of high-dimensional entanglement, and the linear optical elements and single-photon detectors are used for obtaining the relative phase information of high-dimensional entanglement. With these two independent processes, the 16 orthogonal four-dimensional path Bell states can be completely distinguished from each other. This simple and realizable scheme may have useful applications in the quantum information technology based on high-dimensional entanglement.

Kerr-effect-based quantum logical gates in decoherence-free subspace

The decoherence effect caused by the coupling between the system and the environment undoubtedly leads to the errors in efficient implementations of two (or three) qubit logical gates in quantum information processing. Fortunately, decoherence-free subspace (DFS) introduced can effectively decrease the influence of decoherence effect. In this paper, we propose some schemes for setting up a family of quantum control gates, including controlled-NOT (CNOT), Toffoli, and Fredkin gates for two or three logical qubits by means of cross-Kerr nonlinearities in DFS. These three logical gates require neither complicated quantum computational circuits nor auxiliary photons (or entangled states). The success probabilities of three logical gates are approximate 1 by performing the corresponding classical feed-forward operations based on the different measuring results of the X-homodyne detectors, and their fidelities are robust against the photon loss with the current technology. The proposed logical gates rely on only simple linear-optics elements, available single-qubit operations, and mature measurement methods, making our proposed gates be feasible and efficient in practical applications.

Reconfigurable quantum photonic circuits based on quantum dots.

Quantum photonic integrated circuits, composed of linear-optical elements, offer an efficient way for encoding and processing quantum information on-chip. At their core, these circuits rely on reconfigurable phase shifters, typically constructed from classical components such as thermo- or electro-optical materials, while quantum solid-state emitters such as quantum dots are limited to acting as single-photon sources. Here, we demonstrate the potential of quantum dots as reconfigurable phase shifters. We use numerical models based on established literature parameters to show that circuits utilizing these emitters enable high-fidelity operation and are scalable. Despite the inherent imperfections associated with quantum dots, such as imperfect coupling, dephasing, or spectral diffusion, we show that circuits based on these emitters may be optimized such that these do not significantly impact the unitary infidelity. Specifically, they do not increase the infidelity by more than 0.001 in circuits with up to 10 modes, compared to those affected only by standard nanophotonic losses and routing errors. For example, we achieve fidelities of 0.9998 in quantum-dot-based circuits enacting controlled-phase and - not gates without any redundancies. These findings demonstrate the feasibility of quantum emitter-driven quantum information processing and pave the way for cryogenically-compatible, fast, and low-loss reconfigurable quantum photonic circuits.

High-fidelity single logical qubit encoding scheme assisted by single-sided quantum dot-cavity systems.

We present an encoding scheme of a single logical qubit with single-sided quantum dot (QD)-cavity systems, which is immune to the collective decoherence. By adjusting the Purcell factor to satisfy the balanced reflection condition, the detrimental effects of unbalanced reflection between the coupled and uncoupled QD-cavity systems can be effectively suppressed. Furthermore, the fidelity of each step can be increased to unity regardless of the strong coupling regime and the weak coupling regime of cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED) with the assistance of waveform correctors. The scheme requires QD-cavity systems and simple linear optical elements, which can be implemented with the currently experimental techniques.

Efficient noiseless linear amplification protocol for single-photon state using imperfect auxiliary photon source

Noiseless linear amplification (NLA) is a crucial method to solve the photon transmission loss problem. However, most NLA protocols require an ideal auxiliary single-photon source, which is unavailable under current experimental condition. Meanwhile, their heralded amplification performance is relatively low. For enhancing the feasibility and amplification performance of the NLA, in this paper, we propose an efficient NLA protocol with a practical imperfect auxiliary single-photon source. We introduce the local-quadrature squeezing operation into the NLA protocol, which can effectively increase its amplification factor. This NLA protocol only uses some common linear-optical elements, the practical imperfect auxiliary single-photon source, and imperfect single-photon detectors, so that it is easy to implement under the existing experimental condition. It may have important applications in the future quantum information processing field.

One-step quantum dialogue

Quantum dialogue (QD) enables two communication parties to directly exchange secret messages simultaneously. In conventional QD protocols, photons need to transmit in the quantum channel for two rounds. In this paper, we propose a one-step QD protocol based on the hyperentanglement. With the help of the non-local hyperentanglement-assisted Bell state measurement (BSM), the photons only need to transmit in the quantum channel once. We prove that our one-step QD protocol is secure in theory and numerically simulate its secret message capacity under practical experimental condition. Compared with previous QD protocols, the one-step QD protocol can effectively simplify the experiment operations and reduce the message loss caused by the photon transmission loss. Meanwhile, the non-local hyperentanglement-assisted BSM has a success probability of 100% and is feasible with linear optical elements. Moreover, combined with the hyperentanglement heralded amplification and purification, our protocol is possible to realize long-distance one-step QD.

A Two‐Step Entanglement Concentration for the Less‐Entangled Four‐Photon Cluster States

AbstractEntanglement concentration serves as an essential tool to obtain the maximally entangled states from the less‐entangled states in quantum information processing tasks. An efficient two‐step entanglement concentration protocol (ECP) is proposed to concentrate the less‐entangled four‐photon cluster states with four unknown coefficients into the maximally entangled states in this paper. The protocol utilizes parity‐check gate and photon‐polarized controlled‐Z gate, constructed with a single semiconductor quantum dot in a single optical microcavity (quantum dot‐cavity coupled system) and several linear optical elements. The discarded quantum states can be recycled in the next round concentration to achieve a higher success probability. Under conditions of strong coupling and weak side leakage rate, the ECP can tend toward ideal fidelity and efficiency. Compared to the previously proposed ECPs that utilize various auxiliary tools such as additional entangled states and complex quantum logic gates, the ECP significantly simplifies the analysis process and enables efficient implementation. Thus, the ECP is more economical and feasible in future optical systems.

Composable security analysis of linear optics cloning machine improved discretized polar modulation continuous-variable quantum key distribution

In experimental setups of continuous-variable quantum key distribution (CVQKD) independently modulating the amplitude and phase of coherent states, the ideal Gaussian modulation will be degraded into discretized polar modulation (DPM) due to the finite resolution of the driving voltages of electro-optical modulators. To compensate for the performance degradation induced by the joint effect of amplitude and phase discretization, linear optics cloning machine (LOCM) can be introduced on the receiver side to reduce the influence of channel excess noise. Implemented by linear optical elements, homodyne detection and controlled displacement, LOCM introduces extra noise that can be transformed into an advantageous one to combat channel excess noise by dynamically adjusting the relevant parameters into a suitable range. In this paper, the prepare-and-measure version of LOCM DPM-CVQKD is presented, where the incoming signal state enters a tunable LOCM before being measured by the nonideal heterodyne detector. The equivalent entanglement-based model is also established to perform security analysis, where the LOCM is reformulated into combination of the incoming signal state and a thermal state on a beam splitter. The composable secret key rate is derived to investigate the security of LOCM DPM-CVQKD. Simulation results demonstrate that the secret key rate is closely related to the tuning gain and the transmittance of LOCM. Once these two parameters are set to appropriate values, LOCM can improve the secret key rate of DPM-CVQKD, and its resistance to excess noise. Meanwhile, taking finite-size effect into consideration, the LOCM can also effectively reduce the requirement for the block size of the exchanged signals, which is beneficial to the feasibility and practicability of CVQKD. Owing to the fact that the performance of LOCM DPM-CVQKD is largely reliant on the calibration selection of relevant parameters, further research may concentrate on the optimization of LOCM in experimental implementations, where machine learning related methods may be utilized.

Basic study on linear optical quantum computers with liquid crystal devices

A basic experiment on 2-bit quantum calculations related to the Deutsch–Jozsa algorithm on a linear optical quantum computer using a liquid crystal (LC) device as a linear optical element was investigated. By controlling the phase of each of the two split laser beams and checking the number of photons at the output, it is possible to determine if the input bits are “not equal” or “not uniform.” The phase of the laser light was controlled using an LC device and a half-wave plate, and changes in the interference state of the output light and the number of photons were observed. The voltage application to the LC device is set at the input bit. As a result, the interference state changed according to the input bit, and changes in the number of photons were observed.

On Photonic Implementation of Quantum Computers

The first section of the work investigates light modes as a means of implementing optical qubits and qudits. The modes considered are polarization mode, path mode, transverse spatial mode, frequency mode, temporal bin-mode and temporal mode. Subsequently, mathematical model of linear optical elements like beam splitters (BS) and phase shifters are deduced and their capability of representing any single qubit optical gate is exposed. Finally Knill, Laflamme and Milburn (KLM) method of using linear optical elements to promote nonlinear operations based on nonlinear (nondeterministic) sign-flip gate (NS) is explained, and designs of two qubits conditional sign flip gate (c-z1/16) and CNOT gate, both based on KLM method, are demonstrated. So, universal set of quantum gates based on linear optics is possible.

High-Threshold Quantum Computing by Fusing One-Dimensional Cluster States.

We propose a measurement-based model for fault-tolerant quantum computation that can be realized with one-dimensional cluster states and fusion measurements only; basic resources that are readily available with scalable photonic hardware. Our simulations demonstrate high thresholds compared with other measurement-based models realized with basic entangled resources and 2-qubit fusion measurements. Its high tolerance to noise indicates that our practical construction offers a promising route to scalable quantum computing with quantum emitters and linear-optical elements.

Post-selection in noisy Gaussian boson sampling: part is better than whole

Gaussian boson sampling (GBS) is originally proposed to show quantum advantage with quantum linear optical elements. Recently, several experimental breakthroughs based on GBS pointing to quantum computing supremacy have been presented. However, due to technical limitations, the outcomes of GBS devices are influenced severely by photon loss. Here, we present a practical method to reduce the negative effect caused by photon loss. We first show with explicit formulas that a GBS process can be mapped to another GBS processes. Based on this result, we propose a post-selection method which discards low-quality data according to our criterion to improve the performance of the final computational results, say part is better than whole. As an example, we show that the post-selection method can turn a GBS experiment that would otherwise fail in a ‘non-classicality test’ into one that can pass that test. Besides improving the robustness of computation results of current GBS devices, this post-selection method may also benefit the further development of GBS-based quantum algorithms.

Refined Fredkin gate assisted by cross-Kerr nonlinearity

Resource-efficient quantum information processing is equal to the minimal cost of the quantum resources required by quantum logic gates to a certain extent. In this paper, we propose a refined scheme for setting up a polarized Fredkin gate assisted by weak cross-Kerr nonlinearity, X-homodyne detectors, and some linear optical elements. The realization of the Fredkin gate is definite and has a highly successful probability of being close to the unit, which is feasible with the current technology. Moreover, in contrast to the Fredkin gates that have been proposed, the scheme has the advantages of requiring less quantum resource without auxiliary photons, comparatively simplified circuits, lower requirements on the interaction strength, and robustness against photon loss, thus it can be used for scalable quantum computation.

Implementation of photon partial distinguishability in a quantum optical circuit simulation

We are concerned with numerical simulations of quantum optical circuits under certain realistic conditions, specifically that photon quantum states are not perfectly indistinguishable. The partial photon distinguishability presents a serious limitation in implementation of optical quantum information processing. In order to properly assess its effect on quantum information protocols, accurate numerical simulations, which closely emulate quantum circuit operations, are essential. Our specific objective is to provide a computer implementation of the partial photon distinguishability which is in principle applicable to existing simulation techniques used for ideal quantum circuits and which avoids a need for their significant modification. Our approach is based on the Gram-Schmidt orthonormalization process, which is well suited for our purpose. Photonic quantum states are represented by wavepackets which contain information on their time and frequency distributions. In order to account for the partial photon distinguishability, we expand the number of degrees of freedom associated with the circuit operation extending the definition of the photon channels to incorporate wavepacket degrees of freedom. This strategy allows to define delay operations in the same footing as the linear optical elements.

Programmable Spatiotemporal Quantum Parametric Mode Sorter

Photons are ideal information carriers for sensing, communication, and computing. In principle, a single photon can carry much information in its spatiotemporal modes; the challenge is to read it out, as linear optical elements are not sensitive to the subtle differences among those modes. This study demonstrates a nonlinear-optical approach in which a single pass through a LiNiO${}_{3}$ waveguide can separate photons according to their detailed spatiotemporal profiles or their superpositions, even if they completely overlap with each other. This provides access to photons' large Hilbert spaces, pointing to applications in free-space quantum communication, computing, and sensing.