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arXiv:1811.03023 · Nature Communications

Programmable four-photon graph states on a silicon chip

Jeremy C. Adcock, Caterina Vigliar, Raffaele Santagati, Joshua W. Silverstone, Mark G. Thompson

Published Aug 6, 2019• 126 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Future quantum computers require a scalable architecture on a scalable technology-one that supports millions of high-performance components. Measurement-based protocols, using graph states, represent the state of the art in architectures for optical quantum computing. Silicon photonics technology offers enormous scale and proven quantum optical functionality. Here we produce and encode photonic graph states on a mass-manufactured chip, using four on-chip-generated photons. We programmably generate all types of four-photon graph state, implementing a basic measurement-based protocol, and measure high-visibility heralded interference of the chip's four photons. We develop a model of the device and bound the dominant sources of error using Bayesian inference. The combination of measurement-based quantum computation, silicon photonics technology, and on-chip multi-pair sources will be a useful one for future scalable quantum information processing with photons.

DOI
10.1038/s41467-019-11489-y

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Future quantum computers require a scalable architecture on a scalable technology-one that supports millions of high-performance components. Measurement-based protocols, using graph states, represent the state of the art in architectures for optical quantum computing. Silicon photonics technology offers enormous scale and proven quantum optical functionality. Here we produce and encode photonic graph states on a mass-manufactured chip, using four on-chip-generated photons. We programmably generate all types of four-photon graph state, implementing a basic measurement-based protocol, and measure high-visibility heralded interference of the chip's four photons. We develop a model of the device and bound the dominant sources of error using Bayesian inference. The combination of measurement-based quantum computation, silicon photonics technology, and on-chip multi-pair sources will be a useful one for future scalable quantum information processing with photons.
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Silicon quantum photonics promises to take quantum optics to the large scale, where single photons carry the quantum information which can accelerate difficult computational problems, provide perfectly secure communication, or allow high-accuracy measurements. The silicon photonics platform offers miniature, high-yield, and high-performance photonics which are integrable with CMOS electronics and telecommunications-band optics. To date, only non-scalable photon-pair sources, based on spontaneous four-wave mixing (SFWM) in straight silicon waveguides have been shown to interfere [1]. Until now, single-photon experiments in silicon [2] have exclusively used an off-chip apparatus, such as a silica arrayed waveguide grating, to control and manipulate photon frequency. We present a silicon-on-insulator quantum photonic device (Fig. 1a) able to generate and analyse two maximally entangled qubits. We use this device to demonstrate high-visibility quantum interferencebetween resonant SFWM sources (analogous to [1]), phase-stable frequency-selection, and quantum state tomography. We varied the phase  to obtain the fringes shown in Fig. 1b, with a visibility of 96.8%. This high visibility indicates that the two microring sources are substantially identical. We setup the entangled state via the on-chip 17-dB extinction filters, and used quantum state tomography to analyse it (Fig. 1c). We measured a fidelity of 0.8. This is the first time an entangled state of photonic qubits has been both generated and analysed on-chip, and this generation has been done in a way which is scalable to larger photon number. These results represent a new step towards fully silicon-integrated quantum photonics.
Abstract Graphs have provided an expressive mathematical tool to model quantum-mechanical devices and systems. In particular, it has been recently discovered that graph theory can be used to describe and design quantum components, devices, setups and systems, based on the two-dimensional lattice of parametric nonlinear optical crystals and linear optical circuits, different to the standard quantum photonic framework. Realizing such graph-theoretical quantum photonic hardware, however, remains extremely challenging experimentally using conventional technologies. Here we demonstrate a graph-theoretical programmable quantum photonic device in very-large-scale integrated nanophotonic circuits. The device monolithically integrates about 2,500 components, constructing a synthetic lattice of nonlinear photon-pair waveguide sources and linear optical waveguide circuits, and it is fabricated on an eight-inch silicon-on-insulator wafer by complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor processes. We reconfigure the quantum device to realize and process complex-weighted graphs with different topologies and to implement different tasks associated with the perfect matching property of graphs. As two non-trivial examples, we show the generation of genuine multipartite multidimensional quantum entanglement with different entanglement structures, and the measurement of probability distributions proportional to the modulus-squared hafnian (permanent) of the graph’s adjacency matrices. This work realizes a prototype of graph-theoretical quantum photonic devices manufactured by very-large-scale integration technologies, featuring arbitrary programmability, high architectural modularity and massive manufacturing scalability.
With high integration density and excellent optical properties, silicon photonics is becoming a promising platform for complete integration and large-scale optical quantum information processing. Scalable quantum information applications need photon generation and detection to be integrated on the same chip, and we have seen that various devices on the silicon photonic chip have been developed for this goal. This paper reviews the relevant research results and state-of-the-art technologies on the silicon photonic chip for scalable quantum applications. Despite the shortcomings, the properties of some components have already met the requirements for further expansion. Furthermore, we point out the challenges ahead and future research directions for on-chip scalable quantum information applications.