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Quantum circuits with many photons on a programmable nanophotonic chip
J M Arrazola1, V Bergholm2, K Brádler2
1Xanadu, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. juanmiguel@xanadu.ai.
Nature
|March 4, 2021
Summary
This study introduces a new room-temperature, programmable photonic quantum computing system. The novel hardware-software platform enables high-photon-number quantum circuit operations for advanced quantum algorithms.
Area of Science:
- Quantum Computing
- Integrated Nanophotonics
- Quantum Information Processing
Background:
- Current photonic quantum computers face limitations in determinism, photon counts, and gate programmability.
- There is a growing demand for practical quantum computing applications driving innovation in hardware.
Purpose of the Study:
- To present a full-stack hardware-software system for executing many-photon quantum circuit operations.
- To overcome the limitations of existing photonic quantum computing platforms.
- To enable remote execution of complex quantum algorithms.
Main Methods:
- Development of a programmable integrated nanophotonic chip operating at room temperature.
- Integration with a fully automated control system for remote access.
- Utilizing strongly squeezed vacuum states and high sampling rates for multi-photon detection.
Main Results:
- Demonstration of quantum circuit operations with up to eight modes.
- Achieved multi-photon detection rates and numbers exceeding previous programmable quantum optical systems.
- Verified non-classicality of the device output.
Conclusions:
- The developed platform serves as a scalable launchpad for photonic quantum technologies.
- Proof-of-principle demonstrations of Gaussian boson sampling, molecular vibronic spectra, and graph similarity were successfully performed.
- The system enables general and programmable quantum computations at the many-photon level.
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