Dikla Oren

Sparsity-based recovery of three-photon quantum states from two-fold correlations

Recovery of quantum states from measurements is an essential component in quantum information processing. In quantum optical systems, which naturally offer low decoherence and easy manipulation, quantum states are characterized by correlation measurements. When the states comprise more photons so as to encode more qubits, high-order correlation measurements are required. However, high-order correlations are hard to measure in experiments, as the rate of high-order coincidences decreases very fast when increasing the correlation order. This results in a poor signal-to-noise ratio. Likewise, the number of measurements required to characterize a quantum state increases exponentially with the increase in the number of qubits. Here, we use structure, present in most quantum states of interest (for quantum computing, cryptography, boson sampling, etc.), to recover the full quantum state of three photons from two-fold correlations in a single experimental setup.

Quantum state tomography with a single measurement setup

The field of quantum information relies on the crucial issue of characterizing quantum states from measurements. This is performed through a process called quantum state tomography (QST). However, QST requires a large number of measurements, each derived from a different physical observable corresponding to a different experimental setup. Changing the setup results in unwanted changes to the data, prolongs the measurement, and impairs assumptions made about noise. Here, we propose to overcome these drawbacks by performing QST with a single observable. A single observable can often be realized by a single setup, thereby considerably reducing the experimental effort. However, the information contained in a single observable is insufficient for full QST. To overcome the lack of sufficient measurements in a single observable, we increase the system dimension by adding an ancilla that couples to the information in the system and exploit the fact that the sought state is often close to a pure state. We demonstrate our approach on multiphoton states by recovering structured quantum states from a single observable in a single experimental setup.

Quantum entanglement of the spin and orbital angular momentum of photons using metamaterials

Going quantum with metamaterials Metasurfaces should allow wafer-thin surfaces to replace bulk optical components. Two reports now demonstrate that metasurfaces can be extended into the quantum optical regime. Wang et al. determined the quantum state of multiple photons by simply passing them through a dielectric metasurface, scattering them into single-photon detectors. Stav et al. used a dielectric metasurface to generate entanglement between spin and orbital angular momentum of single photons. The results should aid the development of integrated quantum optic circuits operating on a nanophotonic platform. Science, this issue p. 1104, p. 1101 Metasurfaces are demonstrated to operate in the quantum optical regime. Metamaterials constructed from deep subwavelength building blocks have been used to demonstrate phenomena ranging from negative refractive index and ε-near-zero to cloaking, emulations of general relativity, and superresolution imaging. More recently, metamaterials have been suggested as a new platform for quantum optics. We present the use of a dielectric metasurface to generate entanglement between the spin and orbital angular momentum of photons. We demonstrate the generation of the four Bell states on a single photon by using the geometric phase that arises from the photonic spin-orbit interaction and subsequently show nonlocal correlations between two photons that interacted with the metasurface. Our results show that metamaterials are suitable for the generation and manipulation of entangled photon states, introducing the area of quantum optics metamaterials.

Weak measurements compressed sensing quantum state tomography

We show that prior knowledge that a quantum state is close to a pure state enables a direct and efficient measurement of the density matrix representing the state, using the weak measurements methodology.

Structure-based super-resolution in quantum information

We show that prior information, such as that a quantum state is sparse in a known mathematical basis, enables algorithmic reconstruction of an initial three-photon state from two-photon coincidence measurements, thereby achieving quantum super-resolution.

Coherent absorption of two-photon states in metamaterials

Multiple photon absorption processes typically have a nonlinear dependence on the amplitude of the incident optical field. On the other hand, quantum technologies rely on single photon events. It has therefore been of great technical difficulty to achieve nonlinear devices using single photons. This is due to the small cross-section of absorption in room temperature devices, with multi-photon absorption events occurring with extremely low probability. The lack of access to nonlinear processes severely inhibits the use of optics for a large number of applications surrounding quantum technologies. We demonstrate experimentally that by exploiting a coherent absorption mechanism for N=2 N00N states, outlined theoretically by Jeffers in 2000 [1] and experimentally explored by Roger et. al. in 2016 [2], that it is possible to determine and enhance the number of two photon states that are absorbed. Here a 50% absorbing metasurface is placed inside a Sagnac interferometer into which we inject a N00N state. We show that by tuning the phase φ of the input state, |2,0〉 + exp(−ί2φ) |0,2〉, we can selectively tune the output state. For an input phase of φ = π/2 or 3π/2 we find that a single photon is absorbed with 100% probability. However, when we tune the input phase to φ = 0 or π we see that either 0 or 2 photons are absorbed with equal probability. We have developed a theoretical model that, with no free parameters, fits the experimentally measured two-photon contribution and finds the maximum contribution of |0,0) (0,0| to the output state to be 40.5%.

Nonspreading electron-beams that balance self-repulsion

By introducing concepts of beam shaping from nonlinear optics into quantum mechanics, we show how interference of electrons wavefunctions can exactly balance the nonlinear self-repulsion of an electron-beam, creating nonspreading shape-preserving propagation in free-space.