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Quantum tele-amplification with a continuous-variable superposition state

Nature Photonics volume 7, pages 439–443 (2013)Cite this article

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Abstract

Optical coherent states are classical light fields with high purity, and are essential carriers of information in optical networks. If these states could be controlled in the quantum regime, allowing for their quantum superposition (referred to as a Schrödinger-cat state), then novel quantum-enhanced functions such as coherent-state quantum computing (CSQC)1,2,3,4,5, quantum metrology6,7 and a quantum repeater8,9 could be realized in the networks. Optical cat states are now routinely generated in laboratories. An important next challenge is to use them for implementing the aforementioned functions. Here, we demonstrate a basic CSQC protocol, where a cat state is used as an entanglement resource for teleporting a coherent state with an amplitude gain. We also show how this can be extended to a loss-tolerant quantum relay of multi-ary phase-shift keyed coherent states. These protocols could be useful in both optical and quantum communications.

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Figure 1: Scheme of quantum tele-amplification and quantum relay.
Figure 2: Measured results for 12 cases.
Figure 3: Simulated average qubit teleportation fidelity.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge helpful discussions with K. Wakui, M. Takeoka, K. Hayasaka, M. Fujiwara, T.C. Ralph, A.P. Lund, K. Tamaki and M. Koashi. This work was partly supported by the Quantum Information Processing Project in the Program for World-Leading Innovation Research and Development on Science and Technology (FIRST) and by a National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korean Government (Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology; no. 2010-0018295).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT), 4-2-1 Nukui-kitamachi, Koganei, 184-8795, Tokyo, Japan

    Jonas S. Neergaard-Nielsen, Yujiro Eto & Masahide Sasaki

  2. Department of Physics, Technical University of Denmark, Fysikvej, 2800, Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark

    Jonas S. Neergaard-Nielsen

  3. Department of Physics, Gakushuin University, 1-5-1 Mejiro, Toshima-ku, 171-8588, Tokyo, Japan

    Yujiro Eto

  4. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Center for Macroscopic Quantum Control, Seoul National University, Seoul, 151-747, Korea

    Chang-Woo Lee & Hyunseok Jeong

  5. Department of Physics, Texas A&M University at Qatar, PO Box 23874, Doha, Qatar

    Chang-Woo Lee

  6. Centre for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology, School of Mathematics and Physics, University of Queensland, Brisbane, 4072, Queensland, Australia

    Hyunseok Jeong

Authors
  1. Jonas S. Neergaard-Nielsen
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  2. Yujiro Eto
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  3. Chang-Woo Lee
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  4. Hyunseok Jeong
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  5. Masahide Sasaki
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Contributions

M.S. and J.S.N-N. formulated the basic protocol of tele-amplification and loss-tolerant quantum relay, inspired by a teleportation scheme by C-W.L. and H.J. J.S.N-N. and Y.E. carried out the experiment. J.S.N-N., C-W.L., M.S. and H.J. performed the theoretical calculations. J.S.N-N. and M.S. wrote the manuscript, with discussions and input from all authors.

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Correspondence to Masahide Sasaki.

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Neergaard-Nielsen, J., Eto, Y., Lee, CW. et al. Quantum tele-amplification with a continuous-variable superposition state. Nature Photon 7, 439–443 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2013.101

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