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arXiv:1309.3516 · Physical Review X

Creation, Storage, and On-Demand Release of Optical Quantum States with a Negative Wigner Function

Jun–ichi Yoshikawa, Kenzo Makino, Shintaro Kurata, Peter van Loock, Akira Furusawa

Published Dec 13, 2013• 81 citations
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Abstract

Nonclassical quantum states---those with no correspondence to classical states---can be characterized by a negative Wigner function and are vital to quantum-information processing. A new all-optical scheme achieves, for the first time, creation, storage, and on-demand release of highly nonclassical photonic states by using two coupled optical cavities, one for creation and storage, and the other for dynamical tuning of the release.

DOI
10.1103/physrevx.3.041028

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Nonclassical quantum states---those with no correspondence to classical states---can be characterized by a negative Wigner function and are vital to quantum-information processing. A new all-optical scheme achieves, for the first time, creation, storage, and on-demand release of highly nonclassical photonic states by using two coupled optical cavities, one for creation and storage, and the other for dynamical tuning of the release.
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Quantum memories are a crucial element toward efficient quantum protocols. In the continuous variables domain, such memories need to provide high fidelity with an efficiency set to one. Moreover, one needs to store complex quantum states exhibiting negative Wigner functions after storage. We report the storage of single- and two-photon Fock states in an all-optical quantum memory. The Wigner functions of these states show negativity after a storage time of several hundred nanoseconds. This is, to our knowledge, the first demonstration of the storage in the optical domain of non-Gaussian states with more than one photon, captured from an external source and characterized with homodyne detection.
Highly nonclassical character of optical quantum detectors, such as single-photon detectors, is essential for preparation of quantum states of light and a vast majority of applications in quantum metrology and quantum information processing. Therefore, it is both fundamentally interesting and practically relevant to investigate the nonclassical features of optical quantum measurements. Here we propose and experimentally demonstrate a procedure for direct certification of quantum non-Gaussianity and Wigner function negativity, two crucial nonclassicality levels, of photonic quantum detectors. Remarkably, we characterize the highly nonclassical properties of the detector by probing it with only two classical thermal states and a vacuum state. We experimentally demonstrate the quantum non-Gaussianity of a single-photon avalanche diode even under the presence of background noise, and we also certify the negativity of the Wigner function of this detector. Our results open the way for direct benchmarking of photonic quantum detectors with a few measurements on classical states.
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Optical approaches to quantum computation require the creation of multimode photonic quantum states in a controlled fashion. Here we experimentally demonstrate phase locking of two all-optical quantum memories, based on a concatenated cavity system with phase reference beams, for the time-controlled release of two-mode entangled single-photon states. The release time for each mode can be independently determined. The generated states are characterized by two-mode optical homodyne tomography. Entanglement and nonclassicality are preserved for release-time differences up to 400 ns, confirmed by logarithmic negativities and Wigner-function negativities, respectively.