Path-polarization hyperentangled and cluster states of photons on a chip

Encoding many qubits in different degrees of freedom (DOFs) of single photons is one of the routes toward enlarging the Hilbert space spanned by a photonic quantum state. Hyperentangled photon states (that is, states showing entanglement in multiple DOFs) have demonstrated significant implications for both fundamental physics tests and quantum communication and computation. Increasing the number of qubits of photonic experiments requires miniaturization and integration of the basic elements, and functions to guarantee the setup stability, which motivates the development of technologies allowing the precise control of different photonic DOFs on a chip. We demonstrate the contextual use of path and polarization qubits propagating within an integrated quantum circuit. We tested the properties of four-qubit linear cluster states built on both DOFs, and we exploited them to perform the Grover's search algorithm according to the one-way quantum computation model. Our results pave the way toward the full integration on a chip of hybrid multi-qubit multiphoton states. Quantum optics: hyperentanglement on a chip Integrated optical chips performing operations with ‘hyperentangled photons’ have been fabricated by a team in Italy. Hyperentanglement, in which a photon is simultaneously entangled in several different degrees of freedom, is attracting interest because it offers a means to encode more than one quantum bit of information (qubit) onto the same photon, thus increasing the efficiency of quantum computation. However, for the approach to be practical, the hardware needed for hyperentanglement should ideally be an integrated chip platform. Professor Paolo Mataloni and co-workers have done just that using a chip that features high-quality optical waveguides written in a glass by a femtosecond laser. Their chip was used to engineer a four-qubit cluster state via hyperentanglement of the paths and polarizations of two photons. The researchers tested this cluster state by successfully performing Grover’s search algorithm.