Quantum-enhanced optical phase-insensitive heterodyne detection beyond 3-dB noise penalty of image band.

Optical phase-insensitive heterodyne (beat-note) detection, which measures the relative phase of two beams at different frequencies through their interference, is a key sensing technology for various spatial/temporal measurements, such as frequency measurements in optical frequency combs. However, its sensitivity is limited not only by shot noise from the signal frequency band but also by the extra shot noise from an image band, known as the 3-dB noise penalty. Here, we propose a method to remove shot noise from all these bands using squeezed light. We also demonstrate beyond-3-dB noise reduction experimentally, confirming that our method actually reduces shot noise from both the signal and extra bands simultaneously. Our work should boost the sensitivity of various spatial/temporal measurements beyond the current limitations.

Time-Domain Universal Linear-Optical Operations for Universal Quantum Information Processing.

We demonstrate universal and programmable three-mode linear-optical operations in the time domain by realizing a scalable dual-loop optical circuit suitable for universal quantum information processing (QIP). The programmability, validity, and deterministic operation of our circuit are demonstrated by performing nine different three-mode operations on squeezed-state pulses, fully characterizing the outputs with variable measurements, and confirming their entanglement. Our circuit can be scaled up just by making the outer loop longer and also extended to universal quantum computers by incorporating feed forward systems. Thus, our work paves the way to large-scale universal optical QIP.

Programmable time-multiplexed squeezed light source.

One of the leading approaches to large-scale quantum information processing (QIP) is the continuous-variable (CV) scheme based on time multiplexing (TM). As a fundamental building block for this approach, quantum light sources to sequentially produce time-multiplexed squeezed-light pulses are required; however, conventional CV TM experiments have used fixed light sources that can only output the squeezed pulses with the same squeezing levels and phases. We here demonstrate a programmable time-multiplexed squeezed light source that can generate sequential squeezed pulses with various squeezing levels and phases at a time interval below 100 ns. The generation pattern can be arbitrarily chosen by software without changing its hardware configuration. This is enabled by using a waveguide optical parametric amplifier and modulating its continuous pump light. Our light source will implement various large-scale CV QIP tasks.

Efficient Backcasting Search for Optical Quantum State Synthesis.

Non-Gaussian states are essential for many optical quantum technologies. The so-called optical quantum state synthesizer (OQSS), consisting of Gaussian input states, linear optics, and photon-number resolving detectors, is a promising method for non-Gaussian state preparation. However, an inevitable and crucial problem is the complexity of the numerical simulation of the state preparation on a classical computer. This problem makes it very challenging to generate important non-Gaussian states required for advanced quantum information processing. Thus, an efficient method to design OQSS circuits is highly desirable. To circumvent the problem, we offer a scheme employing a backcasting approach, where the circuit of OQSS is divided into some sublayers, and we simulate the OQSS backwards from final to first layers. Moreover, our results show that the detected photon number by each detector is at most 2, which can significantly reduce the requirements for the photon-number resolving detector. By virtue of the potential for the preparation of a wide variety of non-Gaussian states, the proposed OQSS can be a key ingredient in general optical quantum information processing.

Programmable and sequential Gaussian gates in a loop-based single-mode photonic quantum processor.

A quantum processor to import, process, and export optical quantum states is a common core technology enabling various photonic quantum information processing. However, there has been no photonic processor that is simultaneously universal, scalable, and programmable. Here, we report on an original loop-based single-mode versatile photonic quantum processor that is designed to be universal, scalable, and programmable. Our processor can perform arbitrarily many steps of programmable quantum operations on a given single-mode optical quantum state by time-domain processing in a dynamically controlled loop-based optical circuit. We use this processor to demonstrate programmable single-mode Gaussian gates and multistep squeezing gates. In addition, we prove that the processor can perform universal quantum operations by injecting appropriate ancillary states and also be straightforwardly extended to a multimode processor. These results show that our processor is programmable, scalable, and potentially universal, leading to be suitable for general-purpose applications.

All-Optical Storage of Phase-Sensitive Quantum States of Light.

We experimentally demonstrate storage and on-demand release of phase-sensitive, photon-number superposition states of the form α|0⟩+ße^{iθ}|1⟩ for an optical quantized oscillator mode. For this purpose, we newly developed a phase-probing mechanism compatible with a storage system composed of two concatenated optical cavities, which was previously employed for storage of phase-insensitive single-photon states [Phys. Rev. X 3, 041028 (2013)PRXHAE2160-330810.1103/PhysRevX.3.041028]. This is the first demonstration of all-optically storing highly nonclassical and phase-sensitive quantum states of light. The strong nonclassicality of the states after storage becomes manifest as a negative region in the corresponding Wigner function shifted away from the origin in phase space. This negativity is otherwise, without the phase information of the memory system, unobtainable. While our scheme includes the possibility of optical storage, on-demand release and synchronization of arbitrary single-rail qubit states, it is not limited to such states. In fact, our technique is extendible to more general phase-sensitive states such as multiphoton superposition or entangled states, and thus it represents a significant step toward advanced optical quantum information processing, where highly nonclassical states are utilized as resources.

Generation of time-domain-multiplexed two-dimensional cluster state.

Entanglement is the key resource for measurement-based quantum computing. It is stored in quantum states known as cluster states, which are prepared offline and enable quantum computing by means of purely local measurements. Universal quantum computing requires cluster states that are both large and possess (at least) a two-dimensional topology. Continuous-variable cluster states-based on bosonic modes rather than qubits-have previously been generated on a scale exceeding one million modes, but only in one dimension. Here, we report generation of a large-scale two-dimensional continuous-variable cluster state. Its structure consists of a 5- by 1240-site square lattice that was tailored to our highly scalable time-multiplexed experimental platform. It is compatible with Bosonic error-correcting codes that, with higher squeezing, enable fault-tolerant quantum computation.

On-demand photonic entanglement synthesizer.

Quantum information protocols require various types of entanglement, such as Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen, Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger, and cluster states. In optics, on-demand preparation of these states has been realized by squeezed light sources, but such experiments require different optical circuits for different entangled states, thus lacking versatility. Here, we demonstrate an on-demand entanglement synthesizer that programmably generates all these entangled states from a single squeezed light source. This is achieved by a loop-based circuit that is dynamically controllable at nanosecond time scales and processes optical pulses in the time domain. We verify the generation of five different small-scale entangled states and a large-scale cluster state containing more than 1000 modes without changing the optical circuit. Moreover, this circuit enables storage and release of one part of the generated entangled state, thus working as a quantum memory. Our demonstration should open a way for a more general entanglement synthesizer and a scalable quantum processor.

Generation of a Cat State in an Optical Sideband.

We propose a method to subtract a photon from a double sideband mode of continuous-wave light. The central idea is to use phase modulation as a frequency sideband beam splitter in the heralding photon subtraction scheme, where a small portion of the sideband mode is down-converted to 0 Hz to provide a trigger photon. An optical cat state is created by applying the proposed method to a squeezed state at 500 MHz sideband, which is generated by an optical parametric oscillator. The Wigner function of the cat state reconstructed from a direct homodyne measurement of the 500 MHz sideband modes shows the negativity of W(0,0)=-0.088±0.001 without any loss corrections.

Universal Quantum Computing with Measurement-Induced Continuous-Variable Gate Sequence in a Loop-Based Architecture.

We propose a scalable scheme for optical quantum computing using measurement-induced continuous-variable quantum gates in a loop-based architecture. Here, time-bin-encoded quantum information in a single spatial mode is deterministically processed in a nested loop by an electrically programmable gate sequence. This architecture can process any input state and an arbitrary number of modes with almost minimum resources, and offers a universal gate set for both qubits and continuous variables. Furthermore, quantum computing can be performed fault tolerantly by a known scheme for encoding a qubit in an infinite-dimensional Hilbert space of a single light mode.

Entanglement swapping between discrete and continuous variables.

We experimentally realize "hybrid" entanglement swapping between discrete-variable (DV) and continuous-variable (CV) optical systems. DV two-mode entanglement as obtainable from a single photon split at a beam splitter is robustly transferred by means of efficient CV entanglement and operations, using sources of squeezed light and homodyne detections. The DV entanglement after the swapping is verified without postselection by the logarithmic negativity of up to 0.28±0.01. Furthermore, our analysis shows that the optimally transferred state can be postselected into a highly entangled state that violates a Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt inequality by more than 4 standard deviations, and thus it may serve as a resource for quantum teleportation and quantum cryptography.

Experimental proof of nonlocal wavefunction collapse for a single particle using homodyne measurements.

A single quantum particle can be described by a wavefunction that spreads over arbitrarily large distances; however, it is never detected in two (or more) places. This strange phenomenon is explained in the quantum theory by what Einstein repudiated as 'spooky action at a distance': the instantaneous nonlocal collapse of the wavefunction to wherever the particle is detected. Here we demonstrate this single-particle spooky action, with no efficiency loophole, by splitting a single photon between two laboratories and experimentally testing whether the choice of measurement in one laboratory really causes a change in the local quantum state in the other laboratory. To this end, we use homodyne measurements with six different measurement settings and quantitatively verify Einstein's spooky action by violating an Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen-steering inequality by 0.042±0.006. Our experiment also verifies the entanglement of the split single photon even when one side is untrusted.

Noiseless Conditional Teleportation of a Single Photon.

We experimentally demonstrate the noiseless teleportation of a single photon by conditioning on quadrature Bell measurement results near the origin in phase space and thereby circumventing the photon loss that otherwise occurs even in optimal gain-tuned continuous-variable quantum teleportation. In general, thanks to this loss suppression, the noiseless conditional teleportation can preserve the negativity of the Wigner function for an arbitrary pure input state and an arbitrary pure entangled resource state. In our experiment, the positive value of the Wigner function at the origin for the unconditional output state, W(0,0)=0.015±0.001, becomes clearly negative after conditioning, W(0,0)=-0.025±0.005, illustrating the advantage of noiseless conditional teleportation.

Deterministic quantum teleportation of photonic quantum bits by a hybrid technique.

Quantum teleportation allows for the transfer of arbitrary unknown quantum states from a sender to a spatially distant receiver, provided that the two parties share an entangled state and can communicate classically. It is the essence of many sophisticated protocols for quantum communication and computation. Photons are an optimal choice for carrying information in the form of 'flying qubits', but the teleportation of photonic quantum bits (qubits) has been limited by experimental inefficiencies and restrictions. Main disadvantages include the fundamentally probabilistic nature of linear-optics Bell measurements, as well as the need either to destroy the teleported qubit or attenuate the input qubit when the detectors do not resolve photon numbers. Here we experimentally realize fully deterministic quantum teleportation of photonic qubits without post-selection. The key step is to make use of a hybrid technique involving continuous-variable teleportation of a discrete-variable, photonic qubit. When the receiver's feedforward gain is optimally tuned, the continuous-variable teleporter acts as a pure loss channel, and the input dual-rail-encoded qubit, based on a single photon, represents a quantum error detection code against photon loss and hence remains completely intact for most teleportation events. This allows for a faithful qubit transfer even with imperfect continuous-variable entangled states: for four qubits the overall transfer fidelities range from 0.79 to 0.82 and all of them exceed the classical limit of teleportation. Furthermore, even for a relatively low level of the entanglement, qubits are teleported much more efficiently than in previous experiments, albeit post-selectively (taking into account only the qubit subspaces), and with a fidelity comparable to the previously reported values.

Quantum-enhanced optical-phase tracking.

Tracking a randomly varying optical phase is a key task in metrology, with applications in optical communication. The best precision for optical-phase tracking has until now been limited by the quantum vacuum fluctuations of coherent light. Here, we surpass this coherent-state limit by using a continuous-wave beam in a phase-squeezed quantum state. Unlike in previous squeezing-enhanced metrology, restricted to phases with very small variation, the best tracking precision (for a fixed light intensity) is achieved for a finite degree of squeezing because of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. By optimizing the squeezing, we track the phase with a mean square error 15 ± 4% below the coherent-state limit.

Teleportation of nonclassical wave packets of light.

We report on the experimental quantum teleportation of strongly nonclassical wave packets of light. To perform this full quantum operation while preserving and retrieving the fragile nonclassicality of the input state, we have developed a broadband, zero-dispersion teleportation apparatus that works in conjunction with time-resolved state preparation equipment. Our approach brings within experimental reach a whole new set of hybrid protocols involving discrete- and continuous-variable techniques in quantum information processing for optical sciences.