Manipulating spatial qudit states with programmable optical devices

TL;DR

This paper presents a simple method using programmable optical devices to manipulate high-dimensional spatial qudit states, enhancing their practicality for quantum communication.

Contribution

It introduces a novel technique employing programmable diffractive optical devices to modify spatial qudit states, replacing traditional multi-slit methods.

Findings

Demonstrates effective manipulation of spatial qudit states

Simplifies the process of controlling high-dimensional quantum states

Enables flexible and reconfigurable quantum state engineering

Abstract

The study of how to generate high-dimensional quantum states (qudits) is justified by the advantages that they can bring for the field of quantum information. However, to have some real practical potential for quantum communication, these states must be also of simple manipulation. Spatial qudits states, which are generated by engineering the transverse momentum of the parametric down-converted photons, have been until now considered of hard manipulation. Nevertheless, we show in this work a simple technique for modifying these states. This technique is based on the use of programmable diffractive optical devices, that can act as spatial light modulators, to define the Hilbert space of these photons instead of pre-fabricated multi-slits.