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High-rate entanglement between a semiconductor spin and indistinguishable photons

Nature Photonics volume 17, pages 582–587 (2023)Cite this article

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Abstract

Photonic graph states—quantum light states where multiple photons are mutually entangled—are key resources for optical quantum technologies. They are notably at the core of error-corrected measurement-based optical quantum computing and all-optical quantum networks. In the discrete variable framework, these applications require the high-efficiency generation of cluster states whose nodes are indistinguishable photons. Such photonic cluster states can be generated with heralded single-photon sources and probabilistic quantum gates, yet with challenging efficiency and scalability. Spin–photon entanglement has been proposed to deterministically generate linear cluster states. First demonstrations have been obtained with semiconductor spins, achieving high photon indistinguishability, and most recently with atomic systems with a high collection efficiency and record length. Here we report on the efficient generation of three-partite cluster states made of one semiconductor spin and two indistinguishable photons. We harness a semiconductor quantum dot inserted in an optical cavity for efficient photon collection and electrically controlled for high indistinguishability. We demonstrate two- and three-particle entanglement with fidelities of 80 ± 4% and 63 ± 5%, respectively, with photon indistinguishability of 88 ± 0.5%. Owing to the high operation rate allowed by the quantum-dot platform, the spin–photon and spin–photon–photon entanglement rates exceed, by three and two orders of magnitude, respectively, those of the previous state of the art. Our system and experimental scheme, a monolithic solid-state device controlled with a resource-efficient simple experimental configuration, are very promising for future scalable applications.

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Fig. 1: A monolithic solid-state spin–photon interface.
Fig. 2: Experimental scheme and spin–photon entanglement.
Fig. 3: Process fidelity measurement.
Fig. 4: Photon indistinguishability.

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Data availability

All data acquired and used in this work are available upon reasonable request to P.S. (pascale.senellart-mardon@c2n.upsaclay.fr) or N.C. (nathan.coste@c2n.upsaclay.fr).

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Acknowledgements

This work was partially supported by the the IAD-ANR support ASTRID programme Projet ANR-18-ASTR-0024 LIGHT, the QuantERA ERA-NET Cofund in Quantum Technologies project HIPHOP, the European Union’s Horizon 2020 FET OPEN project QLUSTER (grant no. 862035), the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme QUDOT-TECH under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 861097 and the French RENATECH network, a public grant overseen by the French National Research Agency (ANR) as part of the ‘Investissements d’Avenir’ programme (Labex NanoSaclay, reference no. ANR-10-LABX-0035), the Plan France 2030 through the project ANR-22-PETQ-0006. N.C. acknowledges support from the Paris Ile-de-France Région in the framework of DIM SIRTEQ. S.C.W. acknowledges support from the Foundational Questions Institute Fund (grant no. FQXi-IAF19-01). S.E.E. acknowledges supported from the NSF (grant no. 1741656).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre de Nanosciences et de Nanotechnologies, Université Paris-Saclay, Palaiseau, France

    N. Coste, D. A. Fioretto, N. Belabas, M. Gundin, M. Morassi, A. Lemaître, I. Sagnes, A. Harouri, O. Krebs, L. Lanco & P. Senellart

  2. Quandela, Massy, France

    S. C. Wein, P. Hilaire & N. Somaschi

  3. Institut Néel, Université Grenoble Alpes, Grenoble, France

    S. C. Wein, B. Goes & A. Auffeves

  4. Huygens-Kamerlingh Onnes Laboratory, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands

    P. Hilaire

  5. Department of Physics, University of Crete, Heraklion, Greece

    R. Frantzeskakis

  6. Department of Physics, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA

    S. E. Economou

  7. Centre de Nanosciences et de Nanotechnologies, Université Paris Cité, Palaiseau, France

    L. Lanco

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Contributions

N.C. and D.A.F. carried out experimental investigations, data analysis, methodology, visualization and writing. N.B. carried out data analysis, methodology, formal analysis, visualization, writing and supervision. S.C.W. and P.H. provided conceptualization, formal analysis and writing. R.F. provided conceptualization and formal analysis. M.G., B.G. and A.A. carried out formal analysis. N.S., I.S. and A.H. performed nano-processing. A.L. and M.M. carried out sample growth. S.E.E. contributed conceptualization and formal analysis. O.K. contributed to data analysis and methodology. L.L. carried out sample design, methodology, data analysis and formal analysis. P.S. performed nano-processing, data analysis, methodology, visualization, writing, supervision and funding acquisition.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to N. Coste or P. Senellart.

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Competing interests

N.S. is a co-founder and P.S. is a scientific advisor and co-founder of the company Quandela. The other authors declare no competing interests.

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Nature Photonics thanks Wolfgang Langbein and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary Information

Supplementary Figs. 1–3, Tables 1–3, model, derivation of fidelity lower bounds.

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Coste, N., Fioretto, D.A., Belabas, N. et al. High-rate entanglement between a semiconductor spin and indistinguishable photons. Nat. Photon. 17, 582–587 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-023-01186-0

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