Multiphoton Entangled States Research Articles

Interfacing a two-photon NOON state with an atomic quantum memory

Multi-photon entangled states play a crucial role in quantum information applications such as secure quantum communication, scalable computation, and high-precision quantum metrology. Quantum memory for entangled states is a key component of quantum repeaters, which are indispensable in realizing quantum communications. Storing a single photon or an entangled photon has been realized through different protocols. However, there has been no report demonstrating whether a multi-photon state can be stored in any physical system or not. Here, we report on the experimental storage of a two-photon NOON state in a cold atomic ensemble. Quantum interference measured before and after storage clearly shows that the properties of the two-photon NOON state are preserved during storage. Our experiment completes the first step towards storing a multi-photon entangled state.

On-chip frequency combs and telecommunications signal processing meet quantum optics

Entangled optical quantum states are essential towards solving questions in fundamental physics and are at the heart of applications in quantum information science. For advancing the research and development of quantum technologies, practical access to the generation and manipulation of photon states carrying significant quantum resources is required. Recently, integrated photonics has become a leading platform for the compact and cost-efficient generation and processing of optical quantum states. Despite significant advances, most on-chip nonclassical light sources are still limited to basic bi-photon systems formed by two-dimensional states (i.e., qubits). An interesting approach bearing large potential is the use of the time or frequency domain to enabled the scalable onchip generation of complex states. In this manuscript, we review recent efforts in using on-chip optical frequency combs for quantum state generation and telecommunications components for their coherent control. In particular, the generation of bi- and multi-photon entangled qubit states has been demonstrated, based on a discrete time domain approach. Moreover, the on-chip generation of high-dimensional entangled states (quDits) has recently been realized, wherein the photons are created in a coherent superposition of multiple pure frequency modes. The time- and frequency-domain states formed with on-chip frequency comb sources were coherently manipulated via off-the-shelf telecommunications components. Our results suggest that microcavity-based entangled photon states and their coherent control using accessible telecommunication infrastructures can open up new venues for scalable quantum information science.

Protocol for generating multiphoton entangled states from quantum dots in the presence of nuclear spin fluctuations

Multi-photon entangled states are a crucial resource for many applications in quantum information science. Semiconductor quantum dots offer a promising route to generate such states by mediating photon-photon correlations via a confined electron spin, but dephasing caused by the host nuclear spin environment typically limits coherence (and hence entanglement) between photons to the spin $T_2^*$ time of a few nanoseconds. We propose a protocol for the deterministic generation of multi-photon entangled states that is inherently robust against the dominating slow nuclear spin environment fluctuations, meaning that coherence and entanglement is instead limited only by the much longer spin $T_2$ time of microseconds. Unlike previous protocols, the present scheme allows for the generation of very low error probability polarisation encoded three-photon GHZ states and larger entangled states, without the need for spin echo or nuclear spin calming techniques.

Experimental realization of narrowband four-photon Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger state in a single cold atomic ensemble.

Multi-photon entangled states not only play a crucial role in research on quantum physics but also have many applications in quantum information fields such as quantum computation, quantum communication, and quantum metrology. To fully exploit the multi-photon entangled states, it is important to establish the interaction between entangled photons and matter, which requires that photons have narrow bandwidth. Here, we report on the experimental generation of a narrowband four-photon Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger state with a fidelity of 64.9% through multiplexing two spontaneous four-wave mixings in a cold Rb85 atomic ensemble. The full bandwidth of the generated GHZ state is about 19.5MHz. Thus, the generated photons can effectively match the atoms, which are very suitable for building a quantum computation and quantum communication network based on atomic ensembles.

Reversed interplay of quantum interference and which-way information in multiphoton entangled states

We report experimental studies of the multi-photon quantum interference of a two-mode three-photon entangled Fock state $|2, 1\rangle$ + $|1, 2\rangle$ impinging on a two-port balanced beam splitter. When the distinguishability between the two input paths is increased, we observe a reduction followed by a resurgence of the quantum interference signal. We ascribe this unusual behavior to the competition among contributions from distinct numbers of interfering photons. Our theoretical analysis shows that this phenomenon will occur for any entangled Fock-state input of the form $|N, M\rangle$ + $|M, N\rangle$ where M, N > 0. Our results are an indication that wave-particle duality may give rise to a wide range of, largely unexplored, phenomena in multi-particle interference.

Remote preparation of three-photon entangled states via single-photon measurement

Remote state preparation (RSP) provides an indirect way of manipulating quantum information based on the nonlocal effect of quantum measurement. Although RSP has been demonstrated in recent years to remotely prepare multi-photon states, quantum measurement on the same number of photons was required, i.e., to prepare N-photon states via RSP, quantum measurement on the other N-photons was required, hence significantly limiting practicality and applicability of RSP. Here we report the first experimental demonstration of remote preparation of three-photon entangled states by measuring only a single-photon entangled with the three photons. We further generalize our protocol to prepare multi-photon entangled states with arbitrary photon number and purity via single-photon measurement. As our RSP scheme relies on the nonlinearity induced by single-photon measurement, it enables quantum state engineering of multi-photon entangled states beyond the linear optical limit. Our results are expected to have significant impacts on quantum metrology and quantum information processing.

Generation of multiphoton entangled quantum states by means of integrated frequency combs.

Complex optical photon states with entanglement shared among several modes are critical to improving our fundamental understanding of quantum mechanics and have applications for quantum information processing, imaging, and microscopy. We demonstrate that optical integrated Kerr frequency combs can be used to generate several bi- and multiphoton entangled qubits, with direct applications for quantum communication and computation. Our method is compatible with contemporary fiber and quantum memory infrastructures and with chip-scale semiconductor technology, enabling compact, low-cost, and scalable implementations. The exploitation of integrated Kerr frequency combs, with their ability to generate multiple, customizable, and complex quantum states, can provide a scalable, practical, and compact platform for quantum technologies.

Multi-photon entanglement in high dimensions

Entanglement lies at the heart of quantum mechanics $-$ as a fundamental tool for testing its deep rift with classical physics, while also providing a key resource for quantum technologies such as quantum computation and cryptography. In 1987 Greenberger, Horne, and Zeilinger realized that the entanglement of more than two particles implies a non-statistical conflict between local realism and quantum mechanics. The resulting predictions were experimentally confirmed by entangling three photons in their polarization. Experimental efforts since have singularly focused on increasing the number of particles entangled, while remaining in a two-dimensional space for each particle. Here we show the experimental generation of the first multi-photon entangled state where both $-$ the number of particles and the number of dimensions $-$ are greater than two. Interestingly, our state exhibits an asymmetric entanglement structure that is only possible when one considers multi-particle entangled states in high dimensions. Two photons in our state reside in a three-dimensional space, while the third lives in two dimensions. Our method relies on combining two pairs of photons, high-dimensionally entangled in their orbital angular momentum, in such a way that information about their origin is erased. Additionally, we show how this state enables a new type of "layered" quantum cryptographic protocol where two parties share an additional layer of secure information over that already shared by all three parties. In addition to their application in novel quantum communication protocols, such asymmetric entangled states serve as a manifestation of the complex dance of correlations that can exist within quantum mechanics.

Exploration of multiphoton entangled states by using weak nonlinearities.

We propose a fruitful scheme for exploring multiphoton entangled states based on linear optics and weak nonlinearities. Compared with the previous schemes the present method is more feasible because there are only small phase shifts instead of a series of related functions of photon numbers in the process of interaction with Kerr nonlinearities. In the absence of decoherence we analyze the error probabilities induced by homodyne measurement and show that the maximal error probability can be made small enough even when the number of photons is large. This implies that the present scheme is quite tractable and it is possible to produce entangled states involving a large number of photons.

Generation of multi-photon entangled states based on weak measurement and linear optical elements

Abstract This paper presents a scheme which generates multi-photon entangled states based on Mach–Zehnder interferometer and is mainly composed of a photon source with weak measurement, two beam splitters and two orthogonal polarizers. This method can obtain higher efficiency and flexibility compared to previously proposed methods. Furthermore, a practical protocol of the fiber-based setup is proposed. It consists of the photons generation and the entangled states production. Moreover, the mitigation of the decoherence existing in the quantum channels between the proposed entanglement source and its users is provided. The proposed protocol can be exploited in experiments in quantum cryptography and quantum computing.

Phase and amplitude controlled heralding of N00N states.

Entangled photons, an essential resource in quantum technology, are mostly generated in spontaneous processes, making it impossible to know if the quantum state is available for use; giving only a posteriori knowledge of the quantum state via destructive photon detection processes. There are schemes for heralding the generation of entangled photons but the heralding schemes developed to date only inform the generation of a predetermined quantum state with no capability of state control. Here, we report the phase and (probability-) amplitude controlled heralding, i.e., complete quantum state heralding, of multiphoton entangled states or N00N states. Since the phase and amplitude controls are inseparably integrated into the heralding mechanism, our scheme enables generation of N00N states with arbitrary phases and amplitudes. Such a flexible heralding scheme is expected to play important roles in various photonic quantum information applications.

Highly efficient entanglement swapping and teleportation at telecom wavelength.

Entanglement swapping at telecom wavelengths is at the heart of quantum networking in optical fiber infrastructures. Although entanglement swapping has been demonstrated experimentally so far using various types of entangled photon sources both in near-infrared and telecom wavelength regions, the rate of swapping operation has been too low to be applied to practical quantum protocols, due to limited efficiency of entangled photon sources and photon detectors. Here we demonstrate drastic improvement of the efficiency at telecom wavelength by using two ultra-bright entangled photon sources and four highly efficient superconducting nanowire single photon detectors. We have attained a four-fold coincidence count rate of 108 counts per second, which is three orders higher than the previous experiments at telecom wavelengths. A raw (net) visibility in a Hong-Ou-Mandel interference between the two independent entangled sources was 73.3 ± 1.0% (85.1 ± 0.8%). We performed the teleportation and entanglement swapping, and obtained a fidelity of 76.3% in the swapping test. Our results on the coincidence count rates are comparable with the ones ever recorded in teleportation/swapping and multi-photon entanglement generation experiments at around 800 nm wavelengths. Our setup opens the way to practical implementation of device-independent quantum key distribution and its distance extension by the entanglement swapping as well as multi-photon entangled state generation in telecom band infrastructures with both space and fiber links.

Preparing Multi-photon Entangled State with Beam Splitter

We propose a scheme for preparing multi-photon entangled state which is useful for sub-shot-noise sensitivity with beam splitter, where the entangled degree is measured by the reciprocal of the mean quantum Fisher information per particle (RMQFIP). The multi-photon entangled state can be prepared by adjusting the transmissivity of the beam splitter and the better multi-photon entangled state can be prepared by increasing the total number of photons.

Towards loophole-free Bell inequality test with preselected unsymmetrical singlet states of light

Can a Bell test with no detection loophole be demonstrated for multi-photon entangled states of light within the current technology? We examine the possibility of a postselection-free CHSH-Bell inequality test wih an unsymmetrical polarization singlet. To that end we employ a preselection procedure which is performed prior to the test. It allows using imperfect (coarse-grained) binary photodetection in the test. We show an example of preselection scheme which improves violation of the CHSH inequality with the micro-macro polarization singlet produced by the optimal quantum cloning. The preselection is realized by a quantum filter which is believed to be not useful for this purpose.

Deterministic transmission of an arbitrary single-photon polarization state through bit-flip error channel

We present two error-tolerance transmission protocols of a single-photon polarization state when bit-flip error is taken into account. For achieving the transmission target of the single-photon state, the first protocol needs to encode it to a nonmaximally entangled Bell state. Exploiting the interaction of the polarization entanglement with spatial entanglement between two photons, its success probability is 100 %. Different from the first protocol, the second one utilizes the idea of teleportation with an auxiliary Bell state. By performing quantum nondemolition measurement to analyze the parity, conventional measurement, and unitary transformation operations, the success probability of the second protocol is approximately unity. Furthermore, the second protocol can be generalized to the error-tolerance transmission of an arbitrary mixed state or the distribution of an arbitrary multi-photon entangled state.

Network Coding-Based Communications via the Controlled Quantum Teleportation

Inspired by the structure of the network coding over the butterfly network, a framework of quantum network coding scheme is investigated, which transmits two unknown quantum states crossly over the butterfly quantum system with the multi-photon non-maximally entangled GHZ states. In this scheme, it contains certain number of entanglement-qubit source nodes that teleport unknown quantum states to other nodes on the small-scale network where each intermediate node can pass on its received quantum states to others via superdense coding. In order to transmit the unknown states in a deterministic way, the controlled quantum teleportation is adopted on the intermediate node. It makes legal nodes more convenient than any other previous teleportation schemes to transmit unknown quantum states to unknown participants in applications. It shows that the intrinsic efficiency of transmissions approaches 100% in principle. This scheme is secure based on the securely-shared quantum channels between all nodes and the quantum mechanical impossibility of local unitary transformations between non-maximally entangled GHZ states. Moreover, the generalized scheme is proposed for transmitting two multipartite entangled states. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.11591/telkomnika.v11i2.2031

Using macroscopic entanglement to close the detection loophole in Bell-inequality tests

We consider a Bell-like inequality performed using various instances of multi-photon entangled states to demonstrate that losses occurring after the unitary transformations used in the nonlocality test can be counteracted by enhancing the "size" of such entangled states. In turn, this feature can be used to overcome detection inefficiencies affecting the test itself: a slight increase in the size of such states, pushing them towards a more "macroscopic" form of entanglement, significantly improves the state robustness against detection inefficiency, thus easing the closing of the detection loophole. Differently, losses before the unitary transformations cause decoherence effects that cannot be compensated using macroscroscopic entanglement.

The biaxial nonlinear crystal BiB_3O_6 as a polarization entangled photon source using non-collinear type-II parametric down-conversion

We describe the full characterization of the biaxial nonlinear crystal BiB3O6 (BiBO) as a polarization entangled photon source using non-collinear type-II parametric down-conversion. We consider the relevant parameters for crystal design, such as cutting angles, polarization of the photons, effective nonlinearity, spatial and temporal walk-offs, crystal thickness and the effect of the pump laser bandwidth. Experimental results showing entanglement generation with high rates and a comparison to the well investigated beta-BaB2O4 (BBO) crystal are presented as well. Changing the down-conversion crystal of a polarization entangled photon source from BBO to BiBO enhances the generation rate as if the pump power was increased by more than three times. Such an improvement is currently required for the generation of multiphoton entangled states.

Efficient preparation of a four-photon cluster state with homodyne measurement via cross-Kerr nonlinearity

A scheme is proposed for generating a multiphoton entangled cluster state among four modes. The scheme only uses Kerr medium, beam splitter and homodyne measurements on coherent light fields, which can be efficiently made in quantum optical laboratories. The photon in the signal mode is prepared in a superposition state of the vacuum state and one-photon state while the probe beam is initially set in a coherent state superposition. The strong probe mode interacts successively with multiple signal-mode photons, each causing a conditional phase rotation in the probe mode. Subsequent momentum quadrature homodyne measurement of the probe mode will project the photons in the signal mode into the desired entangled states. It is shown that under certain conditions, the four-photon cluster state can be generated with high fidelity and high success probability, and the scheme is feasible by current experimental technology.

Entanglement preparation using symmetric multiports

We investigate the entanglement produced by a multi-path interferometer that is composed of two symmetric multiports, with phase shifts applied to the output of the first multiport. Particular attention is paid to the case when we have a single photon entering the interferometer. For this situation we derive a simple condition that characterize the types of entanglement that one can generate. We then show how one can use the results from the single photon case to determine what kinds of multi-photon entangled states one can prepare using the interferometer.