Scaling silicon quantum photonics technology

The study, published in Science, reports on the development of a large-scale integrated silicon-photonics quantum circuit for the precise and general control of multidimensional entanglement.

Integrated Quantum Photonics allows the routing and control of single particles of light with intrinsically high stability and precision, however to date it has been limited to small-scale demonstrations in which only a small number of components are integrated on a chip. It is thus in high demand to scale up the integrated photonic circuits and increase the complexity and computational power of modern quantum information processing technologies that would enable many revolutionary applications.

An international team of researchers led by scientists from the Uni. of Bristol’s Quantum Engineering Technology Labs has demonstrated the first ever large-scale integrated quantum photonic circuit, which can generate, control and analyze high-dimensional entanglement with unprecedented high precision and generality. The quantum chip was realised using a scalable silicon photonics technology, similar to today’s electronic circuits, which would provide a path to manufacture massive components for the realization of an optical quantum computer. The work, in collaboration with Peking Uni., Technical Uni. of Denmark (DTU), ICFO – The Institute of Photonic Sciences, Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics (MPQ), Polish Academy of Sciences (PAS) and Uni. of Copenhagen, has been published recently in the journal Science.