Deterministic photon source of genuine three-qubit entanglement.

Meng, Yijian; Chan, Ming Lai; Nielsen, Rasmus B; Appel, Martin H; Liu, Zhe; Wang, Ying; Bart, Nikolai; Wieck, Andreas D et al. · Nat Commun · 2024

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

Deterministic photon sources allow long-term advancements in quantum optics. A single quantum emitter embedded in a photonic resonator or waveguide may be triggered to emit one photon at a time into a desired optical mode. By coherently controlling a single spin in the emitter, multi-photon entanglement can be realized. We demonstrate a deterministic source of three-qubit entanglement based on a single electron spin trapped in a quantum dot embedded in a planar nanophotonic waveguide. We implement nuclear spin narrowing to increase the spin dephasing time to <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <msubsup><mrow><mi>T</mi></mrow> <mrow><mn>2</mn></mrow> <mrow><mo>*</mo></mrow> </msubsup> <mo>≃</mo> <mn>33</mn></math> ns, which enables high-fidelity coherent optical spin rotations, and realize a spin-echo pulse sequence for sequential generation of spin-photon and spin-photon-photon entanglement. The emitted photons are highly indistinguishable, which is a key requirement for scalability and enables subsequent photon fusions to realize larger entangled states. This work presents a scalable deterministic source of multi-photon entanglement with a clear pathway for further improvements, offering promising applications in photonic quantum computing or quantum networks.