Utilizing electro-optic modulation and pulse shaping for random measurements, we reconstruct the full density matrix of biphoton frequency combs for entangled qudits up to d = 5. Our method relies on simple experimental settings and can be applied to any frequency-bin quantum system.
Abstract Owing in large part to the advent of integrated biphoton frequency combs (BFCs), recent years have witnessed increased attention to quantum information processing in the frequency domain for its inherent high dimensionality and entanglement compatible with fiber-optic networks. Quantum state tomography (QST) of such states, however, has required complex and precise engineering of active frequency mixing operations, which are difficult to scale. To address these limitations, we propose a novel solution that employs a pulse shaper and electro-optic phase modulator (EOM) to perform random operations instead of mixing in a prescribed manner. Incorporating state-of-the-art Bayesian statistical method, we successfully verify the entanglement and reconstruct the full density matrix of BFCs generated from an on-chip Si3N4 microring resonator (MRR) in up to an 8×8-dimensional two-qudit Hilbert space, the highest dimension to date for frequency bins. Overall, our method furnishes an experimentally powerful approach for frequency-bin tomography with readily implementable operations.
Frequency-bin encoding provides a scalable platform for photonic quantum information processing by enabling high-dimensional qudit states compatible with the telecommunications infrastructure. However, characterizing these systems remains challenging, as conventional quantum state tomography requires measurement resources that increase rapidly with dimensionality, compounded by the difficulty of implementing controllable measurements across many frequency modes at once. Here, we address these challenges and demonstrate threshold quantum state tomography of entangled frequency-bin qudits using adaptive measurements that exploit the sparsity of highly entangled biphoton frequency combs. Combined with Bayesian inference, we experimentally demonstrate full state estimation of biphoton frequency combs with Hilbert space dimensions up to d2=100---a 56% increase over the previous record---all while performing a mere 1.9% of the measurements required by conventional tomographically complete approaches. This work confirms the promise of measurement-aware approaches for characterizing high-dimensional photonic quantum systems, unlocking new tools for full tomography that are hardware-efficient, state-aware, and free from a priori assumptions about state structure.
Abstract Owing in large part to the advent of integrated biphoton frequency combs, recent years have witnessed increased attention to quantum information processing in the frequency domain for its inherent high dimensionality and entanglement compatible with fiber-optic networks. Quantum state tomography of such states, however, has required complex and precise engineering of active frequency mixing operations, which are difficult to scale. To address these limitations, we propose a solution that employs a pulse shaper and electro-optic phase modulator to perform random operations instead of mixing in a prescribed manner. We successfully verify the entanglement and reconstruct the full density matrix of biphoton frequency combs generated from an on-chip Si3N4 microring resonator in up to an 8 × 8-dimensional two-qudit Hilbert space, the highest dimension to date for frequency bins. More generally, our employed Bayesian statistical model can be tailored to a variety of quantum systems with restricted measurement capabilities, forming an opportunistic tomographic framework that utilizes all available data in an optimal way.
Quantum networking holds tremendous promise in transforming computation and communication. Entangled-photon sources are critical for quantum repeaters and networking, while photonic integrated circuits are vital for miniaturization and scalability. In this talk, we focus on generating and manipulating frequency-bin entangled states within integrated platforms. We encode quantum information as a coherent superposition of multiple optical frequencies; this approach is favorable due to its amenability to high-dimensional entanglement and compatibility with fiber transmission. We successfully generate and measure the density matrix of biphoton frequency combs from integrated silicon nitride microrings, fully reconstructing the state in an 8 × 8 two-qudit Hilbert space, the highest so far for frequency bins. Moreover, we employ Vernier electro-optic phase modulation methods to perform time-resolved measurements of biphoton correlation functions. Currently, we are exploring bidirectional pumping of microrings to generate indistinguishable entangled pairs in both directions, aiming to demonstrate key networking operations such as entanglement swapping and Greenberger–Horne–Zeilinger state generation in the frequency domain.
Quantum state tomography (QST) is an essential tool for characterizing an unknown quantum state. Recently, QST has been performed for entangled qudits based on orbital angular momentum, time-energy uncertainty, and frequency bins. Here, we propose a QST for time-bin qudits, with which the number of measurement settings scales linearly with dimension d . Using the proposed scheme, we performed QST for a four-dimensional time-bin maximally entangled state with 16 measurement settings. We successfully reconstructed the density matrix of the entangled qudits, with which the average fidelity of the state was calculated to be 0.950.