High-dimensional entanglement with larger Hilbert spaces enable an encoding of more bits per photon and thus promise increased communication capacities over quantum channels. Quantum frequency combs, which are intrinsically multimode in the temporal and frequency degrees of freedom within a single spatial mode, naturally facilitating the generation and measurement of high-dimensional entanglement. Current challenges include the extension of well-known methods for two qubits to high-dimensional quantum systems and their application in entanglement experiments with photons. More specifically, the major challenge is the certification of high-dimensional entanglement by a number of accessible experimental measurements. In this paper, we increase the Hilbert space dimensionality and provide versatile tools for quantifying and certifying high-dimensional entanglement in a biphoton frequency comb. We quantify the time binned Schmidt number up to 18 and certify entanglement of formation with 1.89 ebits. We have demonstrated a 648- dimensional Hilbert spaces with time-frequency entanglement in a biphoton frequency comb, enabling a computational space up to 13 photonic qubits, and 6.28 bits/photon classical information capacity. This high-dimensional time frequency multimode quantum states of biphoton frequency comb significantly boosting the photon information capacity that is critical for large-scale quantum information processing. Biphoton frequency comb has indeed demonstrated an attractive and powerful approach towards achieving this fundamental goal with applications in high-dimensional quantum information processing, time-frequency cluster-state quantum computation, high-dimensional encoding in quantum networks, and high-dimensional quantum simulations.
High-dimensional entanglement with larger Hilbert spaces enable an encoding of more bits per photon and thus promise increased communication capacities over quantum channels. Quantum frequency combs, which are intrinsically multimode in the temporal and frequency degrees of freedom within a single spatial mode, naturally facilitating the generation and measurement of high-dimensional entanglement. Current challenges include the extension of well-known methods for two qubits to high-dimensional quantum systems and their application in entanglement experiments with photons. More specifically, the major challenge is the certification of high-dimensional entanglement by a number of accessible experimental measurements. In this paper, we increase the Hilbert space dimensionality and provide versatile tools for quantifying and certifying high-dimensional entanglement in a biphoton frequency comb. We quantify the time binned Schmidt number up to 18 and certify entanglement of formation with 1.89 ebits. We have demonstrated a 648- dimensional Hilbert spaces with time-frequency entanglement in a biphoton frequency comb, enabling a computational space up to 13 photonic qubits, and 6.28 bits/photon classical information capacity. This high-dimensional time frequency multimode quantum states of biphoton frequency comb significantly boosting the photon information capacity that is critical for large-scale quantum information processing. Biphoton frequency comb has indeed demonstrated an attractive and powerful approach towards achieving this fundamental goal with applications in high-dimensional quantum information processing, time-frequency cluster-state quantum computation, high-dimensional encoding in quantum networks, and high-dimensional quantum simulations.
Abstract Qudit entanglement is an indispensable resource for quantum information processing since increasing dimensionality provides a pathway to higher capacity and increased noise resilience in quantum communications, and cluster-state quantum computations. In continuous-variable time–frequency entanglement, encoding multiple qubits per photon is only limited by the frequency correlation bandwidth and detection timing jitter. Here, we focus on the discrete-variable time–frequency entanglement in a biphoton frequency comb (BFC), generating by filtering the signal and idler outputs with a fiber Fabry–Pérot cavity with 45.32 GHz free-spectral range (FSR) and 1.56 GHz full-width-at-half-maximum (FWHM) from a continuous-wave (cw)-pumped type-II spontaneous parametric downconverter (SPDC). We generate a BFC whose time-binned/frequency-binned Hilbert space dimensionality is at least 324, based on the assumption of a pure state. Such BFC’s dimensionality doubles up to 648, after combining with its post-selected polarization entanglement, indicating a potential 6.28 bits/photon classical-information capacity. The BFC exhibits recurring Hong–Ou–Mandel (HOM) dips over 61 time bins with a maximum visibility of 98.4% without correction for accidental coincidences. In a post-selected measurement, it violates the Clauser–Horne–Shimony–Holt (CHSH) inequality for polarization entanglement by up to 18.5 standard deviations with an S-parameter of up to 2.771. It has Franson interference recurrences in 16 time bins with a maximum visibility of 96.1% without correction for accidental coincidences. From the zeroth- to the third-order Franson interference, we infer an entanglement of formation (Eof) up to 1.89 ± 0.03 ebits—where 2 ebits is the maximal entanglement for a 4 × 4 dimensional biphoton—as a lower bound on the 61 time-bin BFC’s high-dimensional entanglement. To further characterize time-binned/frequency-binned BFCs we obtain Schmidt mode decompositions of BFCs generated using cavities with 45.32, 15.15, and 5.03 GHz FSRs. These decompositions confirm the time–frequency scaling from Fourier-transform duality. Moreover, we present the theory of conjugate Franson interferometry—because it is characterized by the state’s joint-temporal intensity (JTI)—which can further help to distinguish between pure-state BFC and mixed state entangled frequency pairs, although the experimental implementation is challenging and not yet available. In summary, our BFC serves as a platform for high-dimensional quantum information processing and high-dimensional quantum key distribution (QKD).
Quantum entanglement is a fundamental resource for secure information processing and communications. The canonical optical quantum information processing encodes a single qubit per photon, with remarkable demonstrations of secure quantum communications, linear optical quantum computing amongst others. Often the polarization qubit, a discrete variable with entangled Bell states, is used. Continuous variables such as energy-time modes and spatial modes, however, present a dramatically larger Hilbert space for quantum information processing. The high-dimensional entanglement capture more qubits per photon, enabling dramatically higher secure key rates over longer distances and with better error resilience. Here I will describe our results on high-dimensional entanglement in quantum frequency combs for dense quantum communications. We first demonstrate revival of the Hong-Ou-Mandel interferences, long postulated by theorists more than a decade ago, up to 19-dimensions and with visibilities up to 96.5%. The mode-locked two-photon state in high-dimensions is further witnessed through a stabilized Franson interferometer, as a generalized Bell’s inequality test and hyperentangled through multiple degrees-of-freedom. Entanglement revivals of the non-local interference at discrete time-bins are uncovered, up to 97.8% visibility, as a fundamental resource for dense secure information processing.
Quantum networks enable fundamentally secure communications and entanglement distribution in parallelized quantum computation. Here we describe our high-dimensional quantum network based on frequency-multiplexed time-bin encoding. Our multi-user 21-km experimental testbed is designed for robustness and scalability, with frequency- and temporal-multiplexing for high-rate interconnects while preserving minimal resource usage and multi-party access through simultaneous key or entanglement distribution. Our measurements are in the high-dimensional frequency and temporal conjugate subspaces, via our biphoton frequency comb qudit. Non-local Franson interferometry provide a measured lower-bound of our entanglement-of-formation, and the Schmidt mode decomposition provide an estimate of the accessible quantum information. We highlight adaptive optimization and singly-filtered biphoton combs as a practical architecture in our high-rate quantum network testbed. We describe the photon information efficiency, Shannon capacity, entanglement distribution, raw key rates, security measurements, dispersive bases, code-efficient non-binary error correction, and Holevo bounds embedded in our network.
The field of high-dimensional quantum photonics involves the use of multimode photonic degrees-of-freedom such as the spatial, temporal, or spectral structure of light to encode multi-level quantum states. Recent years have seen rapid progress in the development of methods to generate, manipulate, and distribute such quantum states of light and their use in a range of quantum technology applications that offer practical advantages over conventional qubit-based approaches. High-dimensional quantum states of light encoded in photonic time-bins, frequency-bins, transverse-spatial modes, waveguide paths, and temporal modes have enabled noise-robust fundamental tests of quantum mechanics, error-resilient and high-capacity quantum communication protocols, andas well as efficient approaches for quantum information processing, to name just a few examples. However, research in this field has progressed fairly independently, with little exchange across different photonic degrees-of-freedom or between experiment and theory and no comprehensive comparison between degrees-of-freedom. This roadmap aims to bridge this gap by surveying progress in each area and identifying shared challenges and opportunities that cut across two or more photonic degrees-of-freedoms. We review early work and state-of-the-art experimental techniques under development for high-dimensional quantum states encoded in single and entangled photons, as well as theoretical tools for their measurement and certification. We outline the main outstanding challenges for theory and each experimental degree-of-freedom, identifying promising future directions of research that may enable these to be overcome. We end by discussing interconnections and shared challenges centered around their distribution, measurement, and manipulation, with a view towards their integration into next-generation quantum technology platforms and applications.
Photons offer the potential to carry large amounts of information in their spectral, spatial, and polarisation degrees of freedom. While state-of-the-art classical communication systems routinely aim to maximize this information-carrying capacity via wavelength and spatial-mode division multiplexing, quantum systems based on multi-mode entanglement usually suffer from low state quality, long measurement times, and limited encoding capacity. At the same time, entanglement certification methods often rely on assumptions that compromise security. Here we show the certification of photonic high-dimensional entanglement in the transverse position-momentum degree-of-freedom with a record quality, measurement speed, and entanglement dimensionality, without making any assumptions about the state or channels. Using a tailored macro-pixel basis, precise spatial-mode measurements, and a modified entanglement witness, we demonstrate state fidelities of up to 94.4% in a 19-dimensional state-space, entanglement in up to 55 local dimensions, and an entanglement-of-formation of up to 4 ebits. Furthermore, our measurement times show an improvement of more than two orders of magnitude over previous state-of-the-art demonstrations. Our results pave the way for noise-robust quantum networks that saturate the information-carrying capacity of single photons.
High-dimensional entanglement in qudit states offers a promising pathway towards the realization of practical, large-scale quantum systems that are highly controllable. These systems can be leveraged for various applications, including advanced quantum information processing, secure communications, computation, and metrology. In this context, quantum frequency combs have a crucial role as they inherently support multiple modes in both temporal and frequency domains, while preserving a single spatial mode. The multiple temporal and frequency modes of quantum frequency combs facilitate the generation, characterization, and control of high-dimensional time-frequency entanglement in extensive quantum systems. In this review article, we provide an overview of recent technological advancements in high-dimensional energy-time entangled quantum frequency combs. We explore how these time-frequency qudits, achieved using scalable telecommunications-wavelength components, can empower the creation of large-scale quantum states. Advances in quantum frequency combs can unlock new capabilities and versatility for promising developments in quantum science and technology.