Controllable two-photon interference with versatile quantum frequency processor

TL;DR

This paper presents a reconfigurable quantum frequency processor capable of arbitrary spectral manipulations, enabling high-visibility two-photon interference and quantum gates, advancing the development of frequency-multiplexed quantum networks.

Contribution

The authors introduce a versatile, linear quantum frequency processor that performs arbitrary spectral operations, demonstrating record-high interference visibility and high-fidelity quantum gates.

Findings

Achieved 94% visibility in frequency-bin Hong-Ou-Mandel interference.

Synthesized independent quantum frequency gates with high fidelity.

Reduced noise compared to nonlinear optics-based frequency mixing.

Abstract

Quantum information is the next frontier in information science, promising unconditionally secure communications, enhanced channel capacities, and computing capabilities far beyond their classical counterparts. And as quantum information processing devices continue to transition from the lab to the field, the demand for the foundational infrastructure connecting them with each other and their users---the quantum internet---will only increase. Due to the remarkable success of frequency multiplexing and control in the classical internet, quantum information encoding in optical frequency offers an intriguing synergy with state-of-the-art fiber-optic networks. Yet coherent quantum frequency operations prove extremely challenging, due to the difficulties in mixing frequencies efficiently, arbitrarily, in parallel, and with low noise. Here we implement an original approach based on a reconfigurable quantum frequency processor, designed to perform arbitrary manipulations of spectrally encoded qubits. This processor's unique tunability allows us to demonstrate frequency-bin Hong-Ou-Mandel interference with record-high 94% visibility. Furthermore, by incorporating such tunability with our method's natural parallelizability, we synthesize independent quantum frequency gates in the same device, realizing the first high-fidelity flip of spectral correlations on two entangled photons. Compared to quantum frequency mixing approaches based on nonlinear optics, our linear method removes the need for additional pump fields and significantly reduces background noise. Our results demonstrate multiple functionalities in parallel in a single platform, representing a huge step forward for the frequency-multiplexed quantum internet.