Yun-Feng Huang

Experimental control of the transition from Markovian to non-Markovian dynamics of open quantum systems

An open quantum system loses its ‘quantumness’ when information about the state leaks into its surroundings. Researchers now control this so-called decoherence in a single photon. By rotating an optical filter, the information flow between the photon and its environment can be tuned. This concept could be harnessed for future quantum technologies.

Experimental generation of an eight-photon Greenberger–Horne–Zeilinger state

Multi-partite entangled states are important for developing studies of quantum networking and quantum computation. To date, the largest number of particles that have been successfully manipulated is 14 trapped ions. Yet in quantum information science, photons have particular advantages over other systems. In particular, they are more easily transportable qubits and are more robust against decoherence. Thus far, the largest number of photons to have been successfully manipulated in an experiment is six. Here we demonstrate, for the first time, an eight-photon Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger state with a measured fidelity of 0.59±0.02, which proved the presence of genuine eight-partite entanglement. This is achieved by improving the photon detection efficiency to 25% with a 300-mW pump laser. With this state, we also demonstrate an eight-party quantum communication complexity scenario. This eight-photon entangled-state source may be useful in one-way quantum computation, quantum networks and other quantum information processing tasks.

Experimental Teleportation of a Quantum Controlled-NOT Gate

Teleportation of quantum gates is a critical step for the implementation of quantum networking and teleportation-based models of quantum computation. We report an experimental demonstration of teleportation of the prototypical quantum controlled-NOT (CNOT) gate. Assisted with linear optical manipulations, photon entanglement produced from parametric down-conversion, and postselection from the coincidence measurements, we teleport the quantum CNOT gate from acting on local qubits to acting on remote qubits. The quality of the quantum gate teleportation is characterized through the method of quantum process tomography, with an average fidelity of 0.84 demonstrated for the teleported gate.

Experimental test of the Kochen-Specker theorem with single photons

Using the spontaneous parametric down-conversion process in a type-I phase matching BBO crystal as single photon source, we perform an all-or-nothing-type Kochen-Specker experiment proposed by Simon QTR{it}{et al}. [Phys. Rev. Lett. QTR{bf}{85}, 1783 (2000)] to verify whether noncontextual hidden variables or quantum mechanics is right. The results strongly agree with quantum mechanics.

Plasmon-assisted transmission of high-dimensional orbital angular-momentum entangled state

We present an experimental evidence that high-dimensional orbital angular-momentum entanglement of a pair of photons can be survived after a photon-plasmon-photon conversion. The information of spatial modes can be coherently transmitted by surface plasmons. This experiment primarily studies the high-dimensional entangled systems based on surface plasmon with subwavelength structures. It maybe useful in the investigation of spatial-mode properties of surface plasmon-assisted transmission through subwavelength hole arrays.

Quantum strategies of quantum measurements

Abstract In the classical Monty Hall problem, one player can always win with probability 2/3. We generalize the problem to the quantum domain and show that a fair two-party zero-sum game can be carried out if the other player is permitted to adopt quantum measurement strategy.

Photonic realization of nonlocal memory effects and non-Markovian quantum probes

The study of open quantum systems is important for fundamental issues of quantum physics as well as for technological applications such as quantum information processing. Recent developments in this field have increased our basic understanding on how non-Markovian effects influence the dynamics of an open quantum system, paving the way to exploit memory effects for various quantum control tasks. Most often, the environment of an open system is thought to act as a sink for the system information. However, here we demonstrate experimentally that a photonic open system can exploit the information initially held by its environment. Correlations in the environmental degrees of freedom induce nonlocal memory effects where the bipartite open system displays, counterintuitively, local Markovian and global non-Markovian character. Our results also provide novel methods to protect and distribute entanglement, and to experimentally quantify correlations in photonic environments.

Experimental demonstration of phase measurement precision beating standard quantum limit by projection measurement

We propose and demonstrate experimentally a projection scheme to measure the quantum phase with a precision beating the standard quantum limit. The initial input state is a twin Fock state |N,N proposed by Holland and Burnett (Phys. Rev. Lett., 71 (1993) 1355) but the phase information is extracted by a quantum state projection measurement. The phase precision is about 1.4/N for large photon number N, which approaches the Heisenberg limit of 1/N. Experimentally, we employ a four-photon state from type-II parametric down-conversion and achieve a phase uncertainty of 0.291±0.001 beating the standard quantum limit of for four photons.

Demonstration of temporal distinguishability in a four-photon state and a six-photon state.

An experiment is performed to demonstrate the temporal distinguishability of a four-photon state and a six-photon state, both from parametric down-conversion. The experiment is based on a multiphoton interference scheme in a recently discovered projection measurement of a maximally entangled N-photon state. By measuring the visibility of the interference dip, we can distinguish the various scenarios in the temporal distribution of the pairs and, thus, quantitatively determine the degree of temporal distinguishability of a multiphoton state.

Four-photon interference with asymmetric beam splitters

Two experiments of four-photon interference are performed with two pairs of photons from parametric downconversion with the help of asymmetric beam splitters. The first experiment is a generalization of the Hong-Ou-Mandel interference effect to two pairs of photons while the second one utilizes this effect to demonstrate a four-photon de Broglie wavelength of lambda/4 by projection measurement.