Observation of photonic states dynamics in 3-D integrated Fourier circuits. (6th June 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Flamini, Fulvio; Viggianiello, Niko; Giordani, Taira; Bentivegna, Marco; Spagnolo, Nicolò; Crespi, Andrea; Corrielli, Giacomo; Osellame, Roberto; Martin-Delgado, Miguel Angel; Sciarrino, Fabio
• Is Part Of: Journal of optics. Volume 20:Number 7(2018:Jul.)
• Publication Date: 2018-06-06
• Subjects: integrated photonics -- quantum information -- majorization -- quantum algorithms; Optics -- Periodicals; 535.05
• DOI: 10.1088/2040-8986/aac68b
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2040-8978

Abstract

Abstract: Entanglement is a fundamental resource at the basis of quantum-enhanced performances in several applications, such as quantum algorithms and quantum metrology. In these contexts, Fourier interferometers implement a relevant class of unitary evolutions which can be embedded in a large variety of protocols. For instance, in the single-particle regime it can be adopted to implement the quantum Fourier transform, while in the multi-particle scenario it can be employed to generate quantum states possessing useful entanglement for quantum phase estimation purposes, or as a tool to verify genuine multi-photon interference. In this article, we study experimentally the dynamics of single-photon and two-photon input states during the evolution provided by a 8-mode Fourier transformation, implemented by exploiting a three-dimensional architecture enabled by the femtosecond laser micromachining technology. In such a way, we fabricated three devices to study the evolution after each step of the decomposition. We observe that the probability distributions obey a step-by-step majorization relationship, where the quantum state occupies a progressively larger portion of the Hilbert space. Such behaviour can be related to the majorization principle, which has been conjectured as a necessary condition for quantum speedup.