Quantum Lab

The full structuration of light in the transverse plane, including intensity, phase and polarization, holds the promise of unprecedented capabilities for applications in classical optics as well as in quantum optics and information sciences. Harnessing special topologies can lead to enhanced focusing, data multiplexing or advanced sensing and metrology. Here we experimentally demonstrate the storage … Continua a leggere

Boson sampling is a computational task strongly believed to be hard for classical computers, but efficiently solvable by orchestrated bosonic interference in a specialized quantum computer. Current experimental schemes, however, are still insufficient for a convincing demonstration of the advantage of quantum over classical computation. A new variation of this task, scattershot boson sampling, leads … Continua a leggere

A boson sampling device is a specialized quantum computer that solves a problem that is strongly believed to be computationally hard for classical computers. Recently, a number of small-scale implementations have been reported, all based on multiphoton interference in multimode interferometers. Akin to several quantum simulation and computation tasks, an open problem in the hard-to-simulate … Continua a leggere

Controlling and manipulating the polarization state of a light beam is crucial in applications ranging from optical sensing to optical communications, both in the classical and quantum regime, and ultimately whenever interference phenomena are to be exploited. In addition, many of these applications present severe requirements of phase stability and greatly benefit from a monolithic … Continua a leggere

The evolution of bosons undergoing arbitrary linear unitary transformations quickly becomes hard to predict using classical computers as we increase the number of particles and modes. Photons propagating in a multiport interferometer naturally solve this so-called boson sampling problem, thereby motivating the development of technologies that enable precise control of multiphoton interference in large interferometers. … Continua a leggere

First predicted for quantum particles in the presence of a disordered potential, Anderson localization is a ubiquitous effect, observed also in classical systems, arising from the destructive interference of waves propagating in static disordered media. Here we report the observation of this phenomenon for pairs of polarization-entangled photons in a discrete quantum walk affected by … Continua a leggere

The main features of quantum mechanics reside into interference deriving from the superposition of different quantum objects. While current quantum optical technology enables two-photon interference both in bulk and integrated systems, simultaneous interference of more than two particles, leading to richer quantum phenomena, is still a challenging task. Here we report the experimental observation of … Continua a leggere

Full characterization of quantum states and processes is a fundamental requirement for verification and benchmarking of quantum devices. It has been realized in systems with few components, but for larger systems it becomes unfeasible because of the exponential growing with the system size of the number of measurements and the amount of computational power required … Continua a leggere

Photons naturally solve the BosonSampling problem: sample the outputs of a multi-photon experiment in a linear-optical interferometer. This is strongly believed to be hard to do on a classical computer, and motivates the development of technologies that enable precise control of multi-photon interference in large interferometers. Here we report multi-photon experiments in a 5-mode integrated … Continua a leggere

Quantum interferometry uses quantum resources to improve phase estimation with respect to classical methods. Here we propose and theoretically investigate a new quantum interferometric scheme based on three-dimensional waveguide devices. These can be implemented by femtosecond laser waveguide writing, recently adopted for quantum applications. In particular, multiarm interferometers include “tritter” and “quarter” as basic elements, … Continua a leggere