Search for: All records

Discrete frequency modes, or bins, present a blend of opportunities and challenges for photonic quantum information processing. Frequency-bin-encoded photons are readily generated by integrated quantum light sources, naturally high-dimensional, stable in optical fiber, and massively parallelizable in a single spatial mode. Yet quantum operations on frequency-bin states require coherent and controllable multifrequency interference, making them significantly more challenging to manipulate than more traditional spatial degrees of freedom. In this mini-review, we describe recent developments that have transformed these challenges and propelled frequency bins forward. Focusing on sources, manipulation schemes, and detection approaches, we introduce the basics of frequency-bin encoding, summarize the state of the art, and speculate on the field’s next phases. Given the combined progress in integrated photonics, high-fidelity quantum gates, and proof-of-principle demonstrations, frequency-bin quantum information is poised to emerge from the lab and leave its mark on practical quantum information processing—particularly in networking where frequency bins offer unique tools for multiplexing, interconnects, and high-dimensional communications.

We generate ultrabroadband photon pairs entangled in both polarization and frequency bins through an all-waveguided Sagnac source covering the entire optical C- and L-bands (1530–1625 nm). We perform comprehensive characterization of high-fidelity states in multiple dense wavelength-division multiplexed channels, achieving full tomography of effective four-qubit systems. Additionally, leveraging the inherent high dimensionality of frequency encoding and our electro-optic measurement approach, we demonstrate the scalability of our system to higher dimensions, reconstructing states in a 36-dimensional Hilbert space consisting of two polarization qubits and two frequency-bin qutrits. Our findings hold potential significance for quantum networking, particularly dense coding and entanglement distillation in wavelength-multiplexed quantum networks.

We report a demonstration of a 3-channel wavelength-selective switch with individual channel bandwidths of 2 GHz and drop port loss below 1 dB, paving the way for efficient spectrum utilization in quantum networking applications.

Precise knowledge of position and timing information is critical to support elementary protocols such as entanglement swapping on quantum networks. While approaches have been devised to use quantum light for such metrology, they largely rely on time-of-flight (ToF) measurements with single-photon detectors and, therefore, are limited to picosecond-scale resolution owing to detector jitter. In this work, we demonstrate an approach to distributed sensing that leverages phase modulation to map changes in the spectral phase to coincidence probability, thereby overcoming the limits imposed by single-photon detection. By extracting information about the joint biphoton phase, we measure a generalized delay—the difference in signal–idler arrival, relative to local radio frequency (RF) phase modulation. For nonlocal ranging measurements, we achieve ($2\mathrm{\sigma <\#comment/>}$) precision of$\pm <\#comment/>0.04\mathrm{p}\mathrm{s}$and for measurements of the relative RF phase, ($2\mathrm{\sigma <\#comment/>}$) precision of$\pm <\#comment/>{0.7}^{\circ <\#comment/>}$. We complement this fine timing information with ToF data from single-photon time-tagging to demonstrate absolute measurement of time delay. By relying on off-the-shelf telecommunications equipment and standard quantum resources, this approach has the potential to reduce overhead in practical quantum networks.

Electronic analog to digital converters (ADCs) are running up against the well-known bit depth versus bandwidth trade off. Towards this end, radio frequency (RF) photonic-enhanced ADCs have been the subject of interest for some time. Optical frequency comb technology has been used as a workhorse underlying many of these architectures. Unfortunately, such designs must generally grapple with size, weight, and power (SWaP) concerns, as well as frequency ambiguity issues which threaten to obscure critical spectral information of detected RF signals. In this work, we address these concerns via an RF photonic downconverter with potential for easy integration and field deployment by leveraging a novel, to the best of our knowledge, hybrid microcomb/electro-optic comb design.