Researchers generate high-quality quantum light with modular waveguide device
For the first time, researchers have successfully generated strongly nonclassical light using a modular waveguide-based light source. The achievement represents a crucial step toward creating faster and more practical optical quantum computers.
“Our goal is to dramatically improve information processing by developing faster quantum computers that can perform any type of computation without errors,” said research team member Kan Takase from the University of Tokyo. “Although there are several ways to create a quantum computer, light-based approaches are promising because the information processor can operate at room temperature and the computing scale can be easily expanded.”
In the Optica Publishing Group journal Optics Express, a multi-institutional team of researchers from Japan describe the waveguide optical parametric amplifier (OPA) module they created for quantum experiments. Combining this device with a specially designed photon detector allowed them to generate a state of light known as Schrödinger cat, which is a superposition of coherent states.
“Our method for generating quantum light can be used to increase the computing power of quantum computers and to make the information processer more compact,” said Takase. “Our approach outperforms conventional methods, and the modular waveguide OPA is easy to operate and integrate into quantum computers.”
Generating strongly nonclassical light
Continuous wave squeezed light is used to generate the various quantum states necessary to perform quantum computing. For the best computing performance, the squeezed light source must exhibit very low levels of light loss and be broadband, meaning it includes a wide range of frequencies. More