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Generation and sampling of quantum states of light in a silicon chip

Nature Physics volume 15, pages 925–929 (2019)Cite this article

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Abstract

Implementing large instances of quantum algorithms1,2,3,4,5 requires the processing of many quantum information carriers in a hardware platform that supports the integration of different components6. Although established semiconductor fabrication processes can integrate many photonic components7, the generation and algorithmic processing of many photons has been a bottleneck in integrated photonics. Here, we report the on-chip generation and algorithmic processing of quantum states of light with up to eight photons. Switching between different optical pumping regimes, we implement the scattershot8,9, Gaussian10 and standard boson sampling3,11,12,13,14 protocols in the same silicon chip, which integrates linear and nonlinear photonic circuitry. We use these results to benchmark a quantum algorithm for calculating molecular vibronic spectra4. Our techniques can be readily scaled for the on-chip implementation of specialized quantum algorithms with tens of photons, pointing the way to efficiency advantages over conventional computers15.

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Fig. 1: Silicon photonic chip and experimental configuration.
Fig. 2: Results for SBS.
Fig. 3: Experimental results for GBS.
Fig. 4: Reconstructed FC profile.

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Data availability

The data that support the plots within this paper and other findings of this study are available at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.7492991.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank N. Maraviglia, R. Chadwick, C. Sparrow, L. Banchi, G. Sinclair and D. Bacco for useful discussions and W.A. Murray, M. Loutit, E. Johnston, H. Fedder, M. Schlagmüller, M. Borghi and J. Lennon for technical assistance. The authors acknowledge support from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the European Research Council (ERC) and European Commission (EC) funded grants PICQUE, BBOI, QuChip, QuPIC, QITBOX, Quantera-eranet Square, VILLUM FONDEN, QUANPIC (ref. 00025298) and the Center of Excellence, Denmark SPOC (ref. DNRF123). J.W. acknowledges support from the Beijing Academy of Quantum Information Sciences (Y18G21) and from The Key R&D Program of Guangdong province (2018B030329001). A.L. acknowledges fellowship support from EPSRC (EP/N003470/1).

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Stefano Paesani, Yunhong Ding.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Quantum Engineering Technology Labs, H. H. Wills Physics Laboratory and Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK

    Stefano Paesani, Raffaele Santagati, Levon Chakhmakhchyan, Caterina Vigliar, Jianwei Wang, Mark G. Thompson & Anthony Laing

  2. Department of Photonics Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, Kgs Lyngby, Denmark

    Yunhong Ding, Karsten Rottwitt & Leif K. Oxenløwe

  3. Center for Silicon Photonics for Optical Communication (SPOC), Technical University of Denmark, Kgs Lyngby, Denmark

    Yunhong Ding, Karsten Rottwitt & Leif K. Oxenløwe

  4. State Key Laboratory for Mesoscopic Physics and Collaborative Innovation Center of Quantum Matter, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing, China

    Jianwei Wang

  5. Beijing Academy of Quantum Information Sciences, Beijing, China

    Jianwei Wang

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Contributions

S.P., Y.D., R.S., J.W., M.G.T. and A.L. designed the experiment. Y.D. fabricated the silicon photonics device. S.P., R.S. and C.V. performed the experiment. S.P. and L.C. analysed the data. S.P., Y.D., R.S., L.C. and A.L. wrote the manuscript with feedback from all authors. K.R., L.K.O., M.G.T. and A.L. managed the project.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Yunhong Ding, Jianwei Wang, Mark G. Thompson or Anthony Laing.

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Peer review information: Nature Physics thanks Sonja Barkhofen, Robert Keil and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Paesani, S., Ding, Y., Santagati, R. et al. Generation and sampling of quantum states of light in a silicon chip. Nat. Phys. 15, 925–929 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-019-0567-8

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