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Experimental measurement-based quantum computing beyond the cluster-state model

Nature Photonics volume 5, pages 117–123 (2011)Cite this article

Abstract

The paradigm of measurement-based quantum computation opens new experimental avenues to realizing a quantum computer, and also deepens our understanding of quantum physics. Measurement-based quantum computation originates with a highly entangled universal resource state. For years, clusters states have been the only known universal resources. Surprisingly, a novel framework, namely quantum computation in correlation space, has opened a new route to implementing measurement-based quantum computation based on quantum states having entanglement properties, which differ from cluster states. Here, we report an experimental demonstration of every building block of such a model. With four-qubit and six-qubit states, which are not in the cluster-state category, we have realized a universal set of single-qubit rotations, two-qubit entangling gates and also Deutsch's algorithm. As well as being of fundamental interest, our experiment proves, in principle, the feasibility of universal measurement-based quantum computation without the use of cluster states, which represents a new approach towards the realization of a quantum computer.

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Figure 1: Entangled states and their corresponding circuits.
Figure 2: Experimental setup for generation of the four-qubit state |ψ4〉 and the six-qubit state |ψ6〉.
Figure 3: Success probability of single-qubit rotation and density matrices of the output states of the entangling two-qubit gate.
Figure 4: Theoretical design and experimental results of implementing Deutsch's algorithm.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank H.J. Briegel for valuable suggestions and J. Eisert for helpful discussions. This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation (NNSF) of China, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the National Fundamental Research Program (under grant no. 2006CB921900), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities. The research at Innsbruck is supported by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) (J.-M.C. through the Lise Meitner Program, Special Research Area-Foundations and Applications of Quantum Science (SFB-FoQuS)).

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Author notes

  1. Wei-Bo Gao and Xing-Can Yao: These authors contributed equally to this work

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at Microscale and Department of Modern Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, Anhui, China

    Wei-Bo Gao, Xing-Can Yao, He Lu, Ping Xu, Tao Yang, Chao-Yang Lu, Yu-Ao Chen, Zeng-Bing Chen & Jian-Wei Pan

  2. Institut für Quantenoptik und Quanteninformation, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Technikerstraße 21A, Innsbruck, A-6020, Austria

    Jian-Ming Cai

  3. Institut für theoretische Physik, Universität Innsbruck, Technikerstraße 25, Innsbruck, A-6020, Austria

    Jian-Ming Cai

  4. Physikalisches Institut, Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg, Philosophenweg 12, Heidelberg, 69120, Germany

    Jian-Wei Pan

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  1. Wei-Bo Gao
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Contributions

W.-B.G., J.-M.C., Z.-B.C. and J.-W.P. conceived the research. W.-B.G., X.-C.Y., H.L., P.X., T.Y., C.-Y.L. and Y.-A.C. carried out the experiment. W.-B.G., X.-C.Y., J.-M.C., H.L. and P.X. analysed the data. W.-B.G., J.-M.C., C.-Y.L. Y.-A.C. and J.-W.P. wrote the paper. J.-W.P. and Z.-B.C. supervised the entire project.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Zeng-Bing Chen or Jian-Wei Pan.

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Gao, WB., Yao, XC., Cai, JM. et al. Experimental measurement-based quantum computing beyond the cluster-state model. Nature Photon 5, 117–123 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2010.283

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