Quantum Photonics on a Chip

Dongning Liu, Zhanping Jin, Jingyuan Liu +9 more

Quantum teleportation is a crucial function in quantum networks. The implementation of photonic quantum teleportation could be highly simplified by quantum photonic circuits. To extend chip-to-chip teleportation distance, more effort is needed on both chip design and system implementation. In this work, we demonstrate a time-bin-based chip-to-chip photonic quantum teleportation over optical fibers under the scenario of a star-topology quantum network. Three quantum photonic circuits are designed and fabricated on a single chip, each serving specific functions: heralded single-photon generation at the user node, entangled photon pair generation and BSM at the relay node, and projective measurement of the teleported photons at the central node. The unbalanced Mach-Zehnder interferometers (UMZI) for time-bin encoding in these quantum photonic circuits are optimized to reduce insertion losses and suppress noise photons generated on the chip. Besides, an active feedback system is employed to suppress the impact of fiber length fluctuation between the circuits, achieving a stable quantum interference for the BSM in the relay node. As a result, a photonic quantum teleportation over optical fibers of 12.3 km is achieved based on these quantum photonic circuits, showing the potential of chip integration for the development of quantum networks.

Dominic William Berry, Howard M. Wiseman

Ke Min, Feng Zhou, Xiao Li +2 more

We propose a tailored-waveguide based photonic chip with the functions of trapping, coherently manipulating, detecting and individually addressing an array of single neutral atoms. Such photonic chip consists of an array of independent functional units spaced by a few micrometers, each of which is comprised of one silica-on-silicon optical waveguide and one phase Fresnel microlens etched in the middle of the output interface of the optical waveguide. We fabricated a number of photonic chips with 7 functional units and measured optical characteristics of these chips. We further propose feasible schemes to realize the functions of such photonic chip. The photonic chip is stable, scalable and can be combined with other integrated devices, such as atom chips, and can be used in the future hybrid quantum system and photonic quantum devices.

Paul Davids

James Titchener

Technologies based on quantum mechanics promise to revolutionize the collection, processing and communication of information. However, due to the fragility of quantum coherence, complex quantum states can only exist in highly isolated and stable environments. One suitable environment is that of a quantum photonic chip. Quantum integrated photonics seeks to generate, process and detect complex quantum states inside a photonic chip. This thesis presents theory and experimental verification of novel approaches for the integration of various functionalities into quantum photonic chips in a scalable way. As such, this thesis encompasses a broad area of physics including quantum optics and nonlinear photonics. The results presented in this thesis have applications in the areas of quantum enhanced measurement, communication and information processing. In particular we develop the theory and experimentally demonstrate flexible on-chip sources of spatially entangled photons, the state of which can be reconfigured alloptically. We show how such techniques could enable the realization of simple cluster state quantum computing algorithms using spatially encoded two-photon states. Furthermore, we suggest new and practical approaches for the efficient characterization of mass produced nonlinear quantum photonic chips. Finally we develop and experimentally demonstrate a scalable method for the full quantum state tomography of multi-photon states on-chip. Importantly this technique only requires a linearly increasing number of single photon detectors relative to the number of photons in the state being characterized, and is also highly compatible with on-chip single photon detectors.