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Nature Photonics

Topologically protected quantum entanglement emitters

Tianxiang Dai, Yutian Ao, Jueming Bao, Jun Mao, Yulin Chi, Zhaorong Fu, Yilong You, Xiaojiong Chen, Chonghao Zhai, Bo Tang, Yan Yang, Zhihua Li, Luqi Yuan, Fei Gao, Xiao Lin, Mark G. Thompson, Jeremy L. O’Brien, Yan Li, Xiaoyong Hu, Qihuang Gong, Jianwei Wang

Published Feb 17, 2022• 120 citations

Abstract

Abstract Entanglement and topology both portray nature at the fundamental level but in different manners. Entangled states of quantum particles are intrinsically sensitive to environment, whereas topological phases of matters represent natural robustness against environmental perturbations. Harnessing topology physics to protect entanglement thus has a great potential for reliable quantum applications. However, generating topologically-protected entanglement remains a significant challenge, which requires operating complex quantum devices in combined extreme conditions. Here we report topologically-protected quantum entanglement emitters, that emit topological Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen entangled state and topological multiphoton entangled state from a monolithically-integrated plug-and-play silicon-photonic chip in ambient conditions. The device emulating a photonic anomalous Floquet insulator allows the generation of up to four-photon topological entangled states at nontrivial edge modes. More importantly, we show that the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen entanglement emitters can be topologically protected against artificial structure defects, by comparing tomographically measured fidelities of 0.968 ± 0.004 and 0.951 ± 0.01 for the perfect and defected emitters, respectively. Our topologically-protected entanglement emitters may find applications in photonic quantum computation and quantum simulation, and in the study of quantum topological physics.

DOI: 10.1038/s41566-021-00944-2

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