Integrated photonic quantum chips have emerged as a promising platform for realizing fault-tolerant photonic quantum computers. Compared with bulk-optics systems, integrated photonics offer compact device footprints, enhanced programmability, and exceptional stability, attributes that are essential for executing large-scale and computationally demanding quantum tasks. In this review, we provide a comprehensive overview of recent advances in both discrete-variable and continuous-variable universal photonic quantum computation. We survey progress in fault-tolerant architectures and state-of-the-art integrated platforms and highlight the key challenges that must be addressed to scale photonic systems toward full fault tolerance. Finally, we outline future opportunities and research directions aimed at bridging the gap between current proof-of-principle demonstrations and fully scalable quantum microprocessors.
Integrated photonic quantum chips have emerged as a promising platform for realizing fault-tolerant photonic quantum computers. Compared with bulk-optics systems, integrated photonics offer compact device footprints, enhanced programmability, and exceptional stability, attributes that are essential for executing large-scale and computationally demanding quantum tasks. In this review, we provide a comprehensive overview of recent advances in both discrete-variable and continuous-variable universal photonic quantum computation. We survey progress in fault-tolerant architectures and state-of-the-art integrated platforms and highlight the key challenges that must be addressed to scale photonic systems toward full fault tolerance. Finally, we outline future opportunities and research directions aimed at bridging the gap between current proof-of-principle demonstrations and fully scalable quantum microprocessors.
Abstract Recent years have witnessed significant progress in quantum computing and its applications, driven by the emergence of integrated quantum photonic chips. These chips offer significant advantages of scalability, stability, and low-cost advantages, enabling new possibilities in miniaturized quantum systems. Here, we provide an overview of the advances in integrated photonic chips for quantum computing, beginning with a summary of the prevalent photonic integrated platforms and key components for quantum computing systems. We then discuss a range of quantum computing applications, which are divided into two main directions: one is the Noisy Intermediate Scale Quantum (NISQ) era, and the other is towards the future universal quantum computing. Finally, the review culminates in a perspective on the challenges of high-performance chip-based quantum computing, as well as a prospect for future opportunities in integrated quantum networks.
In recent years, quantum computing has made significant strides, particularly in light-based technology. The introduction of quantum photonic chips has ushered in an era marked by scalability, stability, and cost-effectiveness, paving the way for innovative possibilities within compact footprints. This article provides a comprehensive exploration of photonic quantum computing, covering key aspects such as encoding information in photons, the merits of photonic qubits, and essential photonic device components including light squeezers, quantum light sources, interferometers, photodetectors, and waveguides. The article also examines photonic quantum communication and internet, and its implications for secure systems, detailing implementations such as quantum key distribution and long-distance communication. Emerging trends in quantum communication and essential reconfigurable elements for advancing photonic quantum internet are discussed. The review further navigates the path towards establishing scalable and fault-tolerant photonic quantum computers, highlighting quantum computational advantages achieved using photons. Additionally, the discussion extends to programmable photonic circuits, integrated photonics and transformative applications. Lastly, the review addresses prospects, implications, and challenges in photonic quantum computing, offering valuable insights into current advancements and promising future directions in this technology.
Recent years have witnessed significant progress in quantum communication and quantum internet with the emerging quantum photonic chips, whose characteristics of scalability, stability, and low cost, flourish and open up new possibilities in miniaturized footprints. Here, we provide an overview of the advances in quantum photonic chips for quantum communication, beginning with a summary of the prevalent photonic integrated fabrication platforms and key components for integrated quantum communication systems. We then discuss a range of quantum communication applications, such as quantum key distribution and quantum teleportation. Finally, the review culminates with a perspective on challenges towards high-performance chip-based quantum communication, as well as a glimpse into future opportunities for integrated quantum networks.
In the pursuit of scalable and fault-tolerant quantum computing architectures, photonic-based quantum computers have emerged as a leading frontier. This article provides a comprehensive overview of advancements in photonic quantum computing, developed by leading industry players, examining current performance, architectural designs, and strategies for developing large-scale, fault-tolerant photonic quantum computers. It also highlights recent groundbreaking experiments that leverage the unique advantages of photonic technologies, underscoring their transformative potential. This review captures a pivotal moment of photonic quantum computing in the noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) era, offering insights into how photonic quantum computers might reshape the future of quantum computing.
Photons are a ubiquitous carrier of quantum information: they are fast, suffer minimal decoherence, and do not require huge cryogenic facilities. Nevertheless, their intrinsically weak photon-photon interactions remain a key obstacle to scalable quantum computing. This review surveys hybrid photonic quantum computing, which exploits multiple photonic degrees of freedom to combine the complementary strengths of discrete and bosonic encodings, thereby significantly mitigating the challenge of weak photon-photon interactions. We first outline the basic principles of discrete-variable, native continuous-variable, and bosonic-encoding paradigms. We then summarize recent theoretical advances and state-of-the-art experimental demonstrations with a particular emphasis on the hybrid approach. Its unique advantages, such as efficient generation of resource states and nearly ballistic (active-feedforward-free) operations, are highlighted alongside the remaining technical challenges. To facilitate a clear comparison, we explicitly present the error thresholds and resource overheads required for fault-tolerant quantum computing. Our work offers a focused overview that clarifies how the hybrid approach enables scalable and compatible architectures for quantum computing.
We provide an overview of quantum photonic network on chip. We begin from the discussion of the pros and cons of several material platforms for engineering quantum photonic chips. Then we introduce and analyze the basic building blocks and functional units of quantum photonic integrated circuits. In the main part of this review, we focus on the generation and manipulation of quantum states of light on chip and are particularly interested in some applications of advanced integrated circuits with different functionalities for quantum information processing, including quantum communication, quantum computing, and quantum simulation. We emphasize that developing fully integrated quantum photonic chip which contains sources of quantum light, integrate circuits, modulators, quantum storage, and detectors are promising approaches for future quantum photonic technologies. Recent achievements in the large scale photonic chips for linear optical computing are also included. Finally, we illustrate the challenges toward high performance quantum information processing devices and conclude with promising perspectives in this field.