Large-scale generation of quantum entanglement between individually controllable qubits is at the core of quantum computing, communications, and sensing. Modular architectures of remotely-connected quantum technologies have been proposed for a variety of physical qubits, with demonstrations reported in atomic and all-photonic systems. However, an open challenge in these architectures lies in constructing high-speed and high-fidelity reconfigurable photonic networks for optically-heralded entanglement among target qubits. Here we introduce a programmable photonic integrated circuit (PIC), realized in a piezo-actuated silicon nitride (SiN)-in-oxide CMOS-compatible process, that implements an
Recent advances in photonic integrated circuits have enabled a new generation of programmable Mach–Zehnder meshes (MZMs) realized by using cascaded Mach–Zehnder interferometers capable of universal linear-optical transformations on
- Award ID(s):
- 1839159
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10361348
- Publisher / Repository:
- Nature Publishing Group
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Nature Photonics
- Volume:
- 16
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 1749-4885
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- p. 59-65
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Abstract N ×N Mach–Zehnder mesh (MZM) capable of high-speed execution of linear optical transformations. The visible-spectrum photonic integrated mesh is programmed to generate optical connectivity on up toN = 8 inputs for a range of optically-heralded entanglement protocols. In particular, we experimentally demonstrated optical connections between 16 independent pairwise mode couplings through the MZM, with optical transformation fidelities averaging 0.991 ± 0.0063. The PIC’s reconfigurable optical connectivity suffices for the production of 8-qubit resource states as building blocks of larger topological cluster states for quantum computing. Our programmable PIC platform enables the fast and scalable optical switching technology necessary for network-based quantum information processors. -
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