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arXiv:2212.13191 · Nature Communications

Programmable frequency-bin quantum states in a nano-engineered silicon device

Marco Clementi, Federico Andrea Sabattoli, Massimo Borghi, Linda Gianini, Noemi Tagliavacche, Houssein El Dirani, Laurène Youssef, Nicola Bergamasco, Camille Petit-Étienne, E. Pargon, John E. Sipe, Marco Liscidini, Corrado Sciancalepore, Mattéo Galli, Daniele Bajoni

Published Jan 12, 2023• 62 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Photonic qubits should be controllable on-chip and noise-tolerant when transmitted over optical networks for practical applications. Furthermore, qubit sources should be programmable and have high brightness to be useful for quantum algorithms and grant resilience to losses. However, widespread encoding schemes only combine at most two of these properties. Here, we overcome this hurdle by demonstrating a programmable silicon nano-photonic chip generating frequency-bin entangled photons, an encoding scheme compatible with long-range transmission over optical links. The emitted quantum states can be manipulated using existing telecommunication components, including active devices that can be integrated in silicon photonics. As a demonstration, we show our chip can be programmed to generate the four computational basis states, and the four maximally-entangled Bell states, of a two-qubits system. Our device combines all the key properties of on-chip state reconfigurability and dense integration, while ensuring high brightness, fidelity, and purity.

DOI
10.1038/s41467-022-35773-6

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Photonic qubits should be controllable on-chip and noise-tolerant when transmitted over optical networks for practical applications. Furthermore, qubit sources should be programmable and have high brightness to be useful for quantum algorithms and grant resilience to losses. However, widespread encoding schemes only combine at most two of these properties. Here, we overcome this hurdle by demonstrating a programmable silicon nano-photonic chip generating frequency-bin entangled photons, an encoding scheme compatible with long-range transmission over optical links. The emitted quantum states can be manipulated using existing telecommunication components, including active devices that can be integrated in silicon photonics. As a demonstration, we show our chip can be programmed to generate the four computational basis states, and the four maximally-entangled Bell states, of a two-qubits system. Our device combines all the key properties of on-chip state reconfigurability and dense integration, while ensuring high brightness, fidelity, and purity.
Frequency bin encoding is becoming of widespread use in photonic quantum applications due to its strong noise resilience, the large information content that can be encoded per photon, and the inherent parallelism through which gates can be applied over multiple frequency modes. Ideally, sources of frequency bin qubits and qudits should be programmable, have high brightness, and have tightly spaced spectral modes to be useful for quantum algorithms. Here we present an integrated photonic device that simultaneously met all these requirement. We exploit the coherent generation of photon pairs over multiple ring resonators to overcome the trade-offs that hurdle single resonators. Harnessing the dense integration and phase stability of silicon photonics, we demonstrate a photon pair source of frequency bin qudits and qudits with simultaneously high brightness, fidelity, and purity.
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Quantum optical microcombs in integrated ring resonators generate entangled photon pairs over many spectral modes, and allow the preparation of high dimensional qudit states. Ideally, those sources should be programmable and have a high generation rate, with comb lines tightly spaced for the implementation of efficient qudit gates based on electro-optic frequency mixing. While these requirements cannot all be satisfied by a single resonator device, for which there is a trade-off between high generation rate and tight bin spacing, a promising strategy is the use of multiple resonators, each generating photon pairs in specific frequency bins via spontaneous four-wave mixing. Based on this approach we present a programmable silicon photonics device for the generation of frequency bin entangled qudits, in which bin spacing, qudit dimension, and bipartite quantum state can be reconfigured on-chip. Using resonators with a radius of 22 microns, we achieve a high brightness (MHz/(mW)^2) per comb line with a bin spacing of 15 GHz, and fidelities above 85% with maximally entangled Bell states up to a Hilbert space dimension of sixteen. By individually addressing each spectral mode, we realize states that can not be generated on-chip using a single resonator. We measure the correlation matrices of maximally entangled two-qubit and two-qutrit states on a set of mutually unbiased bases, finding fidelities exceeding 98%, and indicating that the source can find application in high-dimensional secure communication protocols.
We present a programmable silicon photonic four-qubit integrated circuit for the generation and manipulation of diverse quantum states. The silicon photonic chip integrates photon-pair sources, pump-reducing filters, wavelength-division-multiplexing filters, Mach–Zehnder interferometer switches, and single-qubit arbitrary gates, enabling versatile state preparation and tomography. We measure Hong–Ou–Mandel interference with an impressive 98% visibility using four-photon coincidence, laying the foundation for high-purity qubits. Our analysis involves estimating the fidelity and purity of distinct quantum states through maximum-likelihood estimation applied to tomographic measurements. In our experimental results, we showcase the following achievements: a heralded single qubit achieving 98.2% fidelity and 98.3% purity, a Bell state reaching 95.2% fidelity and 94.8% purity, and a four-qubit system with two simultaneous Bell states exhibiting 87.4% fidelity and 84.6% purity. Finally, a four-qubit Greenberger–Horne–Zeilinger (GHZ) state demonstrates 85.4% fidelity and 81.7% purity. In addition, we certify the entanglement of the four-photon GHZ state through Bell’s inequality violations and a negative entanglement witness.