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arXiv:0803.1554 · Science

Optical Quantum Computing

Jeremy L. O’Brien

Published Dec 6, 2007• 1,217 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

In 2001, all-optical quantum computing became feasible with the discovery that scalable quantum computing is possible using only single-photon sources, linear optical elements, and single-photon detectors. Although it was in principle scalable, the massive resource overhead made the scheme practically daunting. However, several simplifications were followed by proof-of-principle demonstrations, and recent approaches based on cluster states or error encoding have dramatically reduced this worrying resource overhead, making an all-optical architecture a serious contender for the ultimate goal of a large-scale quantum computer. Key challenges will be the realization of high-efficiency sources of indistinguishable single photons, low-loss, scalable optical circuits, high-efficiency single-photon detectors, and low-loss interfacing of these components.

DOI
10.1126/science.1142892

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In 2001, all-optical quantum computing became feasible with the discovery that scalable quantum computing is possible using only single-photon sources, linear optical elements, and single-photon detectors. Although it was in principle scalable, the massive resource overhead made the scheme practically daunting. However, several simplifications were followed by proof-of-principle demonstrations, and recent approaches based on cluster states or error encoding have dramatically reduced this worrying resource overhead, making an all-optical architecture a serious contender for the ultimate goal of a large-scale quantum computer. Key challenges will be the realization of high-efficiency sources of indistinguishable single photons, low-loss, scalable optical circuits, high-efficiency single-photon detectors, and low-loss interfacing of these components.
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Quantum computing promises a new paradigm of computation where information is processed in a way that has no classical analogue. There are a number of physical platforms conducive to quantum computation, each with a number of advantages and challenges. Single photons, manipulated using integrated linear optics, constitute a promising platform for universal quantum computation. Their low decoherence rates make them particularly favourable, however the inability to perform deterministic two-qubit gates and the issue of photon loss are challenges that need to be overcome. In this thesis we explore the construction of a linear optical quantum computer based on the cluster state model. We identify the different necessary stages: state preparation, cluster state construction and implementation of quantum error correcting codes, and address the challenges that arise in each of these stages. For the state preparation, we propose a series of linear optical circuits for the generation of small entangled states, assessing their performance under different scenarios. For the cluster state construction, we introduce a ballistic scheme which not only consumes an order of magnitude fewer resources than previously proposed schemes, but also benefits from a natural loss tolerance. Based on this scheme, we propose a full architectural blueprint with fixed physical depth. We make investigations into the resource efficiency of this architecture and propose a new multiplexing scheme which optimises the use of resources. Finally, we study the integration of quantum error-correcting codes in the linear optical scheme proposed and suggest three ways in which the linear optical scheme can be made fault-tolerant.
Quantum computing is the lovechild of quantum physics and computer science. In this talk we look at what quantum computation is, why physicists, chemists and computer scientists might want to do it, and where we are today. There are many possible physical architectures for realising a quantum computer, we will focus on optical quantum computing, where the information is encoded and manipulated using single photons. Formany years this was thought to be science-fiction, but with the discovery of measurement-induced nonlinearity there has been an explosion of interest world-wide, and a slew of ”firsts” in demonstration systems. Scaling up from these small systems to a large error-free computer is possible in principle: at first it was thought it would take horrific numbers of ”physical” gates per ”logical” gate. Recently proposed schemes reduce these overhead requirements from the order of 10,000 to 50, and possibly even 1 - great news if you’re an experimentalist! Finally, we will look briefly at some of the scientific and technological challenges ahead, and present our latest experimental results where we build a small optical quantum system for quantum chemistry, calculating the properties of molecular hydrogen to an accuracy of 20 bits.
Optical quantum computation has represented one of the most successful testbed systems for quantum information processing. Along with ion-traps and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), experimentalists have demonstrated control of qubits, multi-gubit gates and small quantum algorithms. However, photonic based qubits suffer from a problematic lack of a large scale architecture for fault-tolerant computation which could conceivably be built in the near future. While optical systems are, in some regards, ideal for quantum computing due to their high mobility and low susceptibility to environmental decoherence, these same properties make the construction of compact, chip based architectures difficult. Here we discuss many of the important issues related to scalable fault-tolerant quantum computation and introduce a feasible architecture design for an optics based computer. We combine the recent development of topological cluster state computation with the photonic module, simple chip based devices which can be utilized to deterministically entangle photons. The integration of this operational unit with one of the most exciting computational models solves many of the existing problems with other optics based architectures and leads to a feasible large scale design which can continuously generate a 3D cluster state with a photonic module resource cost linear in the cross sectional size of the cluster.
Optical quantum computation was limited to a few photon applications such as quantum cryptography and partial teleportation until 2001. Then the possibility of performing arbitrary logic conditional on certain detection outcomes was introduced by Knill, Laflamme and Milburn ( Nature 2001 409 46). Simple circuits consisting of single photon sources, entangled pair sources, linear optical elements and high efficiency photon counting detectors can be used to develop probabilistic two-photon logic gates. Initially such gates show a low probability of success but can approach the success rate of deterministic (non-linear) logic at the cost of added complexity. These developments have led to the emergence of a novel field of research aimed at improving the efficiency of linear logic and developing the efficient sources and detectors for its implementation. This topical issue of Journal of Optics B: Quantum and Semiclassical Optics is devoted to recent advances in this field. Key to all linear optics gates is the interference effect between separate photons that have no previous history. In this issue we include the first experiment to show such an effect (Rarity et al ), on which many later experiments are based. These interference effects can then be used to entangle separate pairs of particles into higher order entangled states (Zou et al 2005 J. Opt. B: Quantum Semiclass. Opt. 7 119–121) and also to establish entanglement between matter qubits (Kok et al ). Quantum dot single photon sources suitable for linear optics quantum logic are discussed in the paper by Unitt et al while a waveguide source of pair photons is presented by Ducci et al . The difficulties in scaling linear optics quantum computing arise from the low success probabilities of the gates. Introducing a small amount of non-linearity could allow unit efficiency gates to be designed (Munro et al ) while large non-linearities generated by the collective effects in EIT could be used to implement a wide variety of quantum logic functions (Petrosyan). The development of algorithms suitable for optical implementation is addressed by Ellinas et al . Key contributors to this issue are collaborating in the project IST:38864 RAMBOQ which has a primary goal of developing linear optics computation tools and techniques.