Deterministic and Reconfigurable Graph State Generation with a Solid-State Quantum Emitter
Hêlio Huet, Polluri Ramesh, Stephen C. Wein, Nathan Coste, Paul Hilaire, Niccolò Somaschi, Martina Morassi, Aristide Lemaître, Isabelle Sagnes, Matthew F. Doty, O. Krebs, L. Lanco, Dario Fioretto, P. Senellart
We demonstrate deterministic and reconfigurable spin-multiphoton graph state generation using a semiconductor quantum dot embedded in a cavity, compatible with commercial integration for practical fault-tolerant measurement-based quantum computation.
Measurement-based quantum computing offers a promising route towards scalable, universal photonic quantum computation. This approach relies on the deterministic and efficient generation of photonic graph states in which many photons are mutually entangled with various topologies. Recently, deterministic sources of graph states have been demonstrated with quantum emitters in both the optical and microwave domains. In this work, we demonstrate deterministic and reconfigurable graph state generation with optical solid-state integrated quantum emitters. Specifically, we use a single semiconductor quantum dot in a cavity to generate caterpillar graph states, the most general type of graph state that can be produced with a single emitter. By using fast detuned optical pulses, we achieve full control over the spin state, enabling us to vary the entanglement topology at will. We perform quantum state tomography of two successive photons, measuring Bell state fidelities up to 0.80 ± 0.04 and concurrences up to 0.69 ± 0.09, while maintaining high photon indistinguishability. This simple optical scheme, compatible with commercially available quantum dot-based single photon sources, brings us a step closer to fault-tolerant quantum computing with spins and photons. Quantum emitters have recently been identified as efficient sources of graph states, which are entangled states crucial for photonic quantum computation. Here the authors demonstrate deterministic and reconfigurable generation of caterpillar graph states using a semiconductor quantum dot in a cavity.
Entanglement in multiphoton graph states is an important resource with various applications, such as measurement-based quantum computing and memory-less quantum repeaters. While some primitive instances have been successfully prepared, scalable generation of large-scale graph states with programmable connections remains an outstanding challenge. Fusion provides a promising "divide-and-conquer" approach by linking smaller resource states into larger, more complex graphs. However, its practical scalability has been limited by the probabilistic nature of conventional fusion protocols, which necessitates extensive hardware overhead and feed-forward resources to achieve deterministic outcomes. Here, we introduce and experimentally demonstrate a deterministic fusion operation with built-in error mitigation, capable of connecting small time-bin-encoded cluster states--originally generated on-demand from a quantum emitter--into larger, reconfigurable photonic graph states of increased sizes. The fusion operation is realized by nondestructively projecting pairs of flying microwave photonic qubits into Bell states using superconducting circuits with in-situ programmability. Crucially, the protocol features active reset and reuse of matter qubits during graph state generation, thereby circumventing the coherence constraints of the quantum emitter and enabling the generation of genuine multipartite entanglement across 13 photonic qubits. Our results establish a scalable framework for photonic graph-state synthesis, paving the way for fault-tolerant measurement-based quantum computation and distributed quantum networks.
Quantum computation using photons offers one possible route towards the long-standing goal of scalable, fault-tolerant quantum computing. Within this realm, measurement-based quantum computing offers a promising approach exploiting many of the advantages of photons. Implementing photonic measurement-based architectures relies upon the deterministic generation of graph states composed of many entangled photons. Semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) are sources of indistinguishable single photons and hosts of solid-state spins, marking them desirable platforms for controlled entanglement generation. Such a platform consisting of a single charged QD coupled to a photonic cavity has been proven for the generation of multipartite spin-photon graph states. This dissertation will present advancements in the versatility and coherence of such entanglement generation. First, background on quantum dots, single photon generation, spin control, and entanglement will be introduced. Then, sources of error and decoherence will be addressed using control of the hole g-factor and dynamical decoupling techniques. The aim of versatility is advanced through results on the generation of four-partite graph states with on-demand reconfigurability of the type of state produced. Finally, a different paradigm using quantum dot molecules will be introduced, and novel estimation of important physical parameters in this system is developed.
Photonic graph states are key resource states for measurement based quantum information processing. As semiconductor quantum dots are excellent deterministic photon emitters, several protocols using them for the generation of linear cluster states have been proposed, either based on constant precession of a hole or electron spin in a weak magnetic field, or based on optical spin control, in a stronger magnetic field. We theoretically compare four such schemes, using polarization or time-bin encoding, respectively, for a range of cavity environments and spin coherence times. In particular we study how different error mechanisms affect the different schemes, using a microscopic model of the spin control, the excitation and emission dynamics, and of the phonon bath. We find the spin-precession based schemes to scale well with strong cavity enhancement and to be naturally robust against phonon-induced decoherence, while the schemes using optical spin control can perform well for lower spin coherence times and are strongly dependent on the cooperativity of the cavity induced cycling transition. Our results provide a regime map for choosing between magnetic-field-driven and optically controlled protocols depending on spin coherence time, Purcell enhancement, and suppression of unwanted decay channels.
Photon loss is the dominant noise mechanism in photonic quantum technologies. Designing fault-tolerant schemes with high tolerance to loss is thus a central challenge in scaling photonic quantum information processors. Concatenation of a fault-tolerant construction with a code able to efficiently correct loss is a promising approach to achieve this but practical ways to implement code concatenation with photons have been lacking. We propose schemes for generating concatenated graph codes using multiphoton emission from two quantum emitters or a single quantum emitter coupled to a memory—capabilities available in several photonic platforms. We show that these schemes enable fault-tolerant fusion-based quantum computation in practical regimes with high photon loss and standard fusion gates without the need for auxiliary photons.
Since linear-optical two-photon gates are inherently probabilistic, measurement-based implementations are particularly well suited for photonic platforms: a large highly-entangled photonic resource state, called a graph state, is consumed through measurements to perform a computation. The challenge is thus to produce these graph states. Several generation procedures, which use either interacting quantum emitters or efficient spin-photon interface, have been proposed to create these photonic graph states deterministically. Yet, these solutions are still out of reach experimentally since the state-of-the-art is the generation of a linear graph state. Here, we introduce near-deterministic solutions for the generation of graph states using the current quantum emitter capabilities. We propose hybridizing quantum-emitter-based graph state generation with all-photonic fusion gates to produce graph states of complex topology near-deterministically. Our results should pave the way towards the practical implementation of resource-efficient quantum information processing, including measurement-based quantum communication and quantum computing.