The quantum state of the photon pair generated from type-II spontaneous parametric down-conversion pumped by a ultrafast laser pulse exhibits strong decoherence in its polarization entanglement, an effect which can be attributed to the clock effect of the pump pulse or, equivalently, to distinguishing spectral information in the two-photon state. Here, we propose novel temporal and spectral engineering techniques to eliminate these detrimental decoherence effects. The temporal engineering of the two-photon wavefunction results in a universal Bell-state synthesizer that is independent of the choice of pump source, crystal parameters, wavelengths of the interacting photons, and the bandwidth of the spectral filter. In the spectral engineering technique, the distinguishing spectral features of the two-photon state are eliminated through modifications to the two-photon source. In addition, spectral engineering also provides a means for the generation of polarization-entangled states with novel spectral characteristics: the frequency-correlated state and the frequency-uncorrelated state.
The dependence of one- and two-photon characteristics of pulsed entangled two-photon fields generated in spontaneous parametric down-conversion on the pump-pulse properties (shape of the pump-pulse spectrum and its internal structure) is examined. It is shown that entangled two-photon fields with defined properties can be generated. A general relation between the spectra of the down-converted fields is established. As a special case interference of two partially overlapping pulsed two-photon fields is studied. Fourth-order interference pattern of entangled two-photon fields is investigated in …
We experimentally investigate a double-pass parametric down-conversion scheme for producing pulsed, polarization-entangled photon pairs with high visibility. The amplitudes for creating photon pairs on each pass interfere to compensate for distinguishing characteristics that normally degrade two-photon visibility. The result is a high-flux source of polarization-entangled photon pulses that does not require spectral filtering. We observe quantum interference visibility of over 95% without the use of spectral filters for 200 femtosecond pulses, and up to 98.1% with 5 nm bandwidth filters.
A pulsed source of energy-time entangled photon pairs pumped by a standard laser diode is proposed and demonstrated. The basic states can be distinguished by their time of arrival. This greatly simplifies the realization of 2-photon quantum cryptography, Bell state analyzers, quantum teleportation, dense coding, entanglement swapping, GHZ-states sources, etc. Moreover the entanglement is well protected during photon propagation in telecom optical fibers, opening the door to few-photon applications of quantum communication over long distances.
We report the realisation of a fibred polarisation entangled photon-pair source at 1560 nm based on a type-II non linear interaction and working in the picosecond regime. By taking advantage of a set of filters, we deterministically separate the photons and project them into wavelength separable states. A standard entanglement measurement with a net interference visibility close to 1, proves the relevance of our approach as an enabling technology for entanglement-based quantum communication.
The generation of pulsed polarization entangled photon pair has been realized using type-I phase matching in the spontaneous parametirc downconversion process in a space cascaded two-crystal geometry. The optical axes of the crystal are aligned in such a way that the horizontal polarization photon pair is produced from up crystal, and the vertical polarization photon pair is produced from down crystal. These two processes are simultaneous, but are separable in space. We get the high entangled polarization photon pair by using the single mode fiber to erase the spatial information between these…
Entanglement is a universal resource in quantum networks, yet entangled photon sources are typically custom-made for a specific use case. Versatility, both in terms of state modulation and tunability of the temporal properties of the photons, is the key to flexible network architectures and cryptographic primitives that go beyond quantum key distribution. Here, we report on a flexible source design that produces high-quality entanglement in continuous-wave and GHz-rate-pulsed operation modes. Utilizing off-the-shelf optical components, our approach uses a fiber-based Sagnac loop to generate po…
We demonstrate a novel scheme for femto-second pulsed spontaneous parametric down-conversion in periodically poled KTP crystals. Our scheme is based on a crossed crystal configuration with collinear quasi-phase-matching. The non-degenerate photon pairs are split in a fiber-based wavelength division multiplexer. The source is easier to align than common pulsed sources based on bulk BBO crystals and exhibits high-quality polarization entanglement as well as non-classical interference capabilities. Hence, we expect this source to be a well-suited candidate for multi-photon state generation e.g. f…
A new ultra bright pulsed source of polarization entangled photons has been realized using type-II phase matching in spontaneous parametric down conversion process in two cascaded crystals. The optical axes of the crystals are aligned in such a way that the extraordinarily (ordinarily) polarized cone from one crystal overlaps with the ordinarily (extraordinarily) polarized cone from the second crystal. This spatial overlapping removes the association between the polarization and the output angle of the photons that exist in a single type-II down conversion process. Hence, entanglement of photo…
The development of key devices and systems in quantum information technology, such as entangled particle sources, quantum gates and quantum cryptographic systems, requires a reliable and well-established method for characterizing how well the devices or systems work. We report our recent work on experimental characterization of pulsed entangled photonic states and photonic quantum channels, using the methods of state and process tomography. By using state tomography, we could reliably evaluate the states generated from a two-photon source under development and develop a highly entangled pulsed…
We report a source of polarization-entangled photon pairs in the 1550-nm telecommunication band, which is based on non-collinear spontaneous parametric down-conversion in a periodically poled lithium niobate crystal pumped by picosecond pulses. This source is realized utilizing a polarization-based Sagnac interferometer employing a type-0 non-collinear quasi-phase-matching configuration. Polarization entanglement is verified through measurement of the polarization-correlation interference fringes with visibility >96% and by testing the experimental violation of the Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt (…
We demonstrate pulsed polarization-entangled photons generated from a periodically poled $\mathrm{KTiOPO_4}$ (PPKTP) crystal in a Sagnac interferometer configuration at telecom wavelength. Since the group-velocity-matching (GVM) condition is satisfied, the intrinsic spectral purity of the photons is much higher than in the previous scheme at around 800 nm wavelength. The combination of a Sagnac interferometer and the GVM-PPKTP crystal makes our entangled source compact, stable, highly entangled, spectrally pure and ultra-bright. The photons were detected by two superconducting nanowire single …
We demonstrate pulsed operation of a bidirectionally pumped polarization Sagnac interferometric down-conversion source and its generation of narrowband, high-visibility polarization-entangled photons. Driven by a narrowband, mode-locked pump at 390.35 nm, the phase-stable Sagnac source with a type-II phase-matched periodically poled KTiOPO$_4$ crystal is capable of producing 0.01 entangled pair per pulse in a 0.15-nm bandwidth centered at 780.7 nm with 1 mW of average pump power at a repetition rate of 31.1 MHz. We have achieved a mean photon-pair generation rate of as high as 0.7 pair per pul…
The entanglement of different classes of initially entangled qubit pair is investigated in the presence of short laser pulses of rectangular and exponential shapes with either one or both qubits are excited. For the rectangular pulse, the detuning parameter protects the entanglement from degradation and controls its upper and lower bounds. We show that the upper bounds of entanglement decrease if both particles are excited, but the lower bounds are much better if only one particle is excited. The phenomena of entanglement degradation, sudden- death and -birth are shown for small initial time. …
Conducting an open quantum system towards a desired steady state through reservoir engineering is a remarkable task that takes dissipation and decoherence as tools rather than impediments. Here we develop a collisional model to implement reservoir engineering for the one-dimensional harmonic motion of a trapped ion. Our scheme is based on the pulsed interaction between the vibrational mode and the electronic levels of a trapped ion, which is promoted by resolved-sideband lasers. Having multiple internal levels, we show that multiple reservoirs can be engineered, allowing for more efficient syn…
We report the generation of polarization-entangled photons by femtosecond-pulse-pumped spontaneous parametric down-conversion in a cascade of two type-I crystals. Highly entangled pulsed states were obtained by introducing a temporal delay between the two orthogonal polarization components of the pump field. They exhibited high-visibility quantum interference and a large concurrence value, without the need of post-selection using narrow-bandwidth-spectral filters. The results are well explained by the theory which incorporates the space-time dependence of interfering two-photon amplitudes if d…
Engineering protected cavity-QED interactions through pulsed dynamical decoupling
University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU（巴斯克地区大学）；Instituto de Física Teórica, UAM-CSIC, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid（马德里自治大学理论物理研究所）；Quantronics Group, SPEC, CEA Saclay, CNRS, Université Paris-Saclay（巴黎综合理工学院集团、SPEC、CEA萨克雷、CNRS、巴黎萨克雷大学）；Department of Physics, ETH Zürich（苏黎世联邦理工学院物理系）；Walther-Meißner-Institut, Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften（瓦尔特·迈斯纳研究所，巴伐利亚科学院）；Technische Universität München, TUM School of Natural Sciences, Physics Department（慕尼黑工业大学自然科学学院物理系）；Munich Center for Quantum Science and Technology (MCQST)（慕尼黑量子科学与技术中心）
A pulsed laser scenario, designed to prepare an appropriately chosen self-assembled quantum dot with 100% population in a biexciton state, is proposed. The ensuing radiative emission would provide a near perfect (99.5%) high rate, on-demand, source of entangled photons.
Multi-dimensional entangled states have been proven to be more powerful in some quantum information process. In this paper, down-converted photons from spontaneous parametric down conversion(SPDC) are used to engineer multi-dimensional entangled states. A kind of multi-degree multi-dimensional Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger(GHZ) state can also be generated. The hyper-entangled photons, which are entangled in energy-time, polarization and orbital angular momentum (OAM), is proved to be useful to increase the dimension of systems and investigate higher-dimensional entangled states.
We study the feasibility of nonlocally compensating for polarization mode dispersion (PMD), when polarization entangled photons are distributed in fiber-optic channels.We quantify the effectiveness of nonlocal compensation while taking into account the possibility that entanglement is generated through the use of a pulsed optical pump signal.
A method for generating entangled cat states of two modes of a microwave cavity field is proposed. Entanglement results from the interaction of the field with a beam of atoms crossing the microwave resonator, giving rise to non-unitary dynamics of which the target entangled state is a fixed point. We analyse the robustness of the generated two-mode photonic "cat state" against dephasing and losses by means of numerical simulation. This proposal is an instance of quantum reservoir engineering of photonic systems.
We present a proposal for realizing local decoherence-free evolution of given entangled states of two two-level (TL) ions. For two TL ions coupled to a single heavily damped cavity, we can use engineering reservoir scheme to obtain a decoherence-free subspace which can be nonadiabatically controlled by the system and reservoir parameters. Then the local decoherence-free evolution of the entangled states are achieved. And we also discuss the relation between the geometric phases and the entanglement of the two ions under the nonadiabatic coherent evolution.
Photon pairs, highly entangled in polarization have been generated under femtosecond laser pulse excitation by a type I crystal source, operating in a single arm interferometric scheme. The relevant effects of temporal walk-off existing in these conditions between the ordinary and extraordinary photons were experimentally investigated. By introducing a suitable temporal compensation between the two orthogonal polarization components highly entangled pulsed states were obtained.
We investigate how quantum coincidence interferometry is affected by a controllable manipulation of transverse wave-vectors in type-II parametric down conversion using adaptive optics techniques. In particular, we discuss the possibility of spatial walk-off compensation in quantum interferometry and a new effect of even-order spatial aberration cancellation.
We implemented a triply entangled Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger(GHZ)-like state and coherently manipulated the spin, path, and energy degrees of freedom in a single neutron system. The GHZ-like state was analyzed with an inequality derived by Mermin: we determined the four expectation values and finally obtained M = 2.558 +/- 0.004 > 2, which exhibits a clear violation of the noncontextual assumption and confirms quantum contextuality.
We report the realization of a bright ultrafast two-mode squeezer based on type II parametric downconversion (PDC) in periodically poled $\mathrm{KTiOPO_4}$ (PP-KTP) waveguides. It produces a pulsed two-mode squeezed vacuum state: a photon-number entangled pair of truly single-mode pulses or, in terms of continuous variables quantum optics, a pulsed, single mode Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) state in the telecom regime. We prove the single mode character of our source by measuring its $g^{(2)}$ correlation function and demonstrate a mean photon number of up to 2.5 per pulse, equivalent to 11dB…
We discuss the application of dipole blockade techniques for the preparation of single atom and single photon sources. A deterministic protocol is given for loading a single atom in an optical trap as well as ejecting a controlled number of atoms in a desired direction. A single photon source with an optically controlled beam-like emission pattern is described.
We propose and analyze a new method to produce single and entangled photons which does not require cavities. It relies on the collective enhancement of light emission as a consequence of the presence of entanglement in atomic ensembles. Light emission is triggered by a laser pulse, and therefore our scheme is deterministic. Furthermore, it allows one to produce a variety of photonic entangled states by first preparing certain atomic states using simple sequences of quantum gates. We analyze the feasibility of our scheme, and particularize it to: ions in linear traps, atoms in optical lattices,…
A strategy for generating entanglement in two separated optomechanical oscillators is analysed, using entangled radiation produced from downconversion and stored in an initiating cavity. We show that the use of pulsed entanglement with optimally shaped temporal modes can efficiently transfer quantum entanglement into a mechanical mode, then remove it after a fixed waiting time for measurement. This protocol could provide new avenues to test for bounds on decoherence in massive systems that are spatially separated, as originally suggested by Wendell Furry [1] not long after the discussion by Ei…
We study the dissipative preparation of many-body entangled Gaussian states in bosonic lattice models which could be relevant for quantum technology applications. We assume minimal resources, represented by systems described by particle-conserving quadratic Hamiltonians, with a single localized squeezed reservoir. We show that in this way it is possible to prepare, in the steady state, the wide class of pure states which can be generated by applying a generic passive Gaussian transformation on a set of equally squeezed modes. This includes non-trivial multipartite entangled states such as clus…
This theoretical proposal investigates how resonant interactions occurring when a harmonic oscillator is fed with a stream of entangled qubits allow us to stabilize squeezed states of the harmonic oscillator. We show that the properties of the squeezed state stabilized by this engineered reservoir, including the squeezing strength, can be tuned at will through the parameters of the "input" qubits, albeit in tradeoff with the convergence rate. We also discuss the influence of the type of entanglement in the input, from a pairwise case to a more widely distributed case. This paper can be read in…
We propose a measurement protocol to generate path-entangled NOON states conditionally from two pulsed type II optical parametric oscillators. We calculate the fidelity of the produced states and the success probability of the protocol. The trigger detectors are assumed to have finite dead time, and for short pulse trigger fields they are modeled as on/off detectors with finite efficiency. Continuous-wave operation of the parametric oscillators is also considered.
Generating multi-photon entangled states is a primary task for applications of quantum information processing. We investigate production of photon-triplet in a regime of light amplification in second-order nonlinear media under action of a pulsed laser beam. For this goal the process of cascaded three-photon splitting in an optical cavity driven by a sequence of laser pulses with Gaussian time-dependent envelopes is investigated. Considering production of photon-triplet for short-time regime and in the cascaded three-wave collinear configuration Generating multi-photon entangled states is a pr…
We propose a method to generate entangled states of the vibrational modes of N membranes which are coupled to a cavity mode via the radiation pressure. Using sideband excitations, we show that arbitrary entangled states of vibrational modes of different membranes can be produced in principle by sequentially applying a series of classical pulses with desired frequencies, phases and durations. As examples, we show how to synthesize several typical entangled states, for example, Bell states, NOON states, GHZ states and W states. The environmental effect, information leakage, and experimental feas…
We investigate the quantum state generated by optical parametric down-conversion in a $χ^{(2) } $ medium driven by two noncollinear light modes. The analysis shows the emergence of multipartite, namely 3- or 4-partite, entangled states in a subset of the spatio-temporal modes generated by the process. These appear as bright spots against the background fluorescence, providing an interesting analogy with the phenomenology recently observed in two-dimensional nonlinear photonic crystals. We study two realistic setups: i) Non-critical phase-matching in a periodically poled Lithium Tantalate slab,…
Efficient heralded generation of entanglement together with its manipulation is of great importance for quantum communications. In addition, states generated with bandwidths naturally compatible with atomic transitions allow a more efficient mapping of light into matter which is an essential requirement for long distance quantum communications. Here we propose a scheme where the indistinguishability between two spontaneous four-wave mixing processes is engineered to herald generation of single-photon frequency-bin entangled states, i.e., single-photons shared by two distinct frequency modes. W…
We demonstrate full selective control over the constructive or destructive character of fourth-order recurring interferences in a modified version of a HOM interferometer using comb-like two-photon states. The comb spectral/temporal structure is obtained by inserting an etalon cavity in the signal path of an entangled photon pair obtained by pulsed spontaneous parametric down-conversion. Both a simple qualitative discussion and a complete theoretical derivation are used to explain and analyze the experimental data.
It has been shown that there are not only transverse but also longitudinal couplings between microwave fields and a superconducting qubit with broken inversion symmetry of the potential energy. Using multiphoton processes induced by longitudinal coupling fields and frequency matching conditions, we design a universal algorithm to produce arbitrary superpositions of two-mode photon states of microwave fields in two separated transmission line resonators, which are coupled to a superconducting qubit. Based on our algorithm, we analyze the generation of evenly-populated states and NOON states. Co…
We describe a simple and efficient setup to generate and characterize femtosecond quadrature-entangled pulses. Quantum correlations equivalent to about 2.5 dB squeezing are efficiently and easily reached using the non-degenerate parametric amplification of femtosecond pulses through a single-pass in a thin (0.1 mm) potassium niobate crystal. The entangled pulses are then individually sampled to characterize the non-separability and the entropy of formation of the states. The complete experiment is analysed in the time-domain, from the pulsed source of quadrature entanglement to the time-resolv…
We demonstrate the first experimental violation of a spin-1 Bell inequality. The spin-1 inequality is a calculation based on the Clauser, Horne, Shimony and Holt formalism. For entangled spin-1 particles the maximum quantum mechanical prediction is 2.552 as opposed to a maximum of 2, predicted using local hidden variables. We obtained an experimental value of 2.27 $\pm 0.02$ using the four-photon state generated by pulsed, type-II, stimulated parametric down-conversion. This is a violation of the spin-1 Bell inequality by more than 13 standard deviations.
We investigate the use of quantum-jump-based feedback to manipulate the stability of multipartite entangled dark states in an open quantum system. Using the model proposed in Phys. Rev. A 76, 010301(R) (2007) for a pair of atoms, we show a general strategy to produce many-body singlet stationary entangled states for larger number of atoms. In the case of four qubits, we propose a simple local feedback control that, although not optimal, is realistic and stabilises a highly entangled state. We discuss the limitations and analyse alternative strategies within the framework of direct jump feedbac…
Entanglement is a unique property of quantum systems and an essential resource for many quantum technologies. The ability to transfer or swap entanglement between systems is an important protocol in quantum information science. Entanglement between photons forms the basis of distributed quantum networks and the demonstration of photonic entanglement swapping is essential for their realization. Here an experiment demonstrating entanglement swapping from two independent multimode time-frequency entangled sources is presented, resulting in multiple heralded temporal-mode Bell states. Entanglement…
So far, various multi-photon entangled states have been observed experimentally by using different experimental set-ups. Here, we present a scheme to realize many SLOCC-inequivalent states of three and four qubits via projective measurements on suitable entangled states. We demonstrate how these states can be observed experimentally in a single set-up and study the feasibility of the implementation with present-day technology.
We study the physics of four-photon states generated in spontaneous parametric down-conversion with a pulsed pump field. In the limit where the coherence time of the photons t_c is much shorter than the duration of the pump pulse Delta t, the four photons can be described as two independent pairs. In the opposite limit, the four photons are in a four-particle entangled state. Any intermediate case can be characterized by a single parameter chi, which is a function of t_c/Delta t. We present a direct measurement of chi through a simple experimental setup. The full theoretical analysis is also p…
We characterize a periodically poled KTP crystal that produces an entangled, two-mode, squeezed state with orthogonal polarizations, nearly identical, factorizable frequency modes, and few photons in unwanted frequency modes. We focus the pump beam to create a nearly circular joint spectral probability distribution between the two modes. After disentangling the two modes, we observe Hong-Ou-Mandel interference with a raw (background corrected) visibility of 86 % (95 %) when an 8.6 nm bandwidth spectral filter is applied. We measure second order photon correlations of the entangled and disentan…
We present a simple technique to reduce the emission rate of higher-order photon events from pulsed spontaneous parametric down-conversion. The technique uses extra-cavity control over a mode locked ultrafast laser to simultaneously increase repetition rate and reduce the energy of each pulse from the pump beam. We apply our scheme to a photonic quantum gate, showing improvements in the non-classical interference visibility for 2-photon and 4-photon experiments, and in the quantum-gate fidelity and entangled state production in the 2-photon case.
Optical quantum information processing needs ultra-bright sources of entangled photons, especially from synchronizable femtosecond lasers and low-cost cw-diode lasers. Decoherence due to timing information and spatial mode-dependent phase has traditionally limited the brightness of such sources. We report on a variety of methods to optimize type-I polarization-entangled sources - the combined use of different compensation techniques to engineer high-fidelity pulsed and cw-diode laser-pumped sources, as well as the first production of polarization-entanglement directly from the highly nonlinear…
The effect of quantum "Bang-Bang" control on entangled states is studied. A system of two initially entangled qubits interacting with a bosonic environment is considered. The interaction induces a loss of the initial entanglement of the two qubits and for specific initial states it causes "entanglement sudden death". A pulsed control of both qubits leads to the preservation of the entanglement. It is also shown that a single pulse performed after the sudden death time induces an entanglement revival in the two qubits system.
We designed and implemented a novel combination of a Sagnac-interferometer with a Mach-Zehnder interferometer for a source of polarization-entangled photons. The new versatile configuration does not require multi-wavelength polarization optics, yet it performs with a good polarization quality and phase-stability over a wide wavelength range. We demonstrate the interferometer using only standard commercial optics to experimentally realize the pulsed generation of polarization-entangled photon-pairs at wavelengths of 764nm and 1221nm via type-I spontaneous four-wave mixing in a polarization-main…
Using four-wave mixing in a hot atomic vapor, we generate a pair of entangled twin beams in the microsecond pulsed regime near the D1 line of $^{85}$Rb, making it compatible with commonly used quantum memory techniques. The beams are generated in the bright and vacuum-squeezed regimes, requiring two separate methods of analysis, without and with local oscillators, respectively. We report a noise reduction of up to $3.8\pm 0.2$ dB below the standard quantum limit in the pulsed regime and a level of entanglement that violates an Einstein--Podolsky--Rosen inequality.
Quantum networks are essential for realising distributed quantum computation and quantum communication. Entangled photons are a key resource, with applications such as quantum key distribution, quantum relays, and quantum repeaters. All components integrated in a quantum network must be synchronised and therefore comply with a certain clock frequency. In quantum key distribution, the most mature technology, clock rates have reached and exceeded 1GHz. Here we show the first electrically pulsed sub-Poissonian entangled photon source compatible with existing fiber networks operating at this clock…
