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Dik Bouwmeester

Publications and source records attributed to Dik Bouwmeester.

12 recordsLinked to original sources

Experimental quantum teleportation

Quantum teleportation -- the transmission and reconstruction over arbitrary distances of the state of a quantum system -- is demonstrated experimentally. During teleportation, an initial photon which carries the polarization that is to be transferred and one of a pair of entangled photons are subjected to a measurement such that the second photon of the entangled pair acquires the polarization of the initial photon. This latter photon can be arbitrarily far away from the initial one. Quantum teleportation will be a critical ingredient for quantum computation networks.

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Theory of an Entanglement Laser

We consider the creation of polarization entangled light from parametric down- conversion driven by an intense pulsed pump inside a cavity. The multi-photon states produced are close approximations to singlet states of two very large spins. A criterion is derived to quantify the entanglement of such states. We study the dynamics of the system in the presence of losses and other imperfections, concluding that the creation of strongly entangled states with photon numbers up to a million seems achievable.

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Towards quantum superpositions of a mirror

We propose a scheme for creating quantum superposition states involving of order $10^{14}$ atoms via the interaction of a single photon with a tiny mirror. This mirror, mounted on a high-quality mechanical oscillator, is part of a high-finesse optical cavity which forms one arm of a Michelson interferometer. By observing the interference of the photon only, one can study the creation and decoherence of superpositions involving the mirror. All experimental requirements appear to be within reach of current technology.

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Multi-Photon Entanglement Concentration and Quantum Cryptography

Multi-photon states from parametric down-conversion can be entangled both in polarization and photon number. Maximal high-dimensional entanglement can be concentrated from these states via photon counting. This makes them natural candidates for quantum key distribution, where the presence of more than one photon per detection interval has up to now been considered as undesirable. We propose a simple multi-photon protocol for the case of low losses and point out the robustness of the entanglement under photon loss.

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Experimental Quantum Cloning of Single Photons

Although perfect copying of unknown quantum systems is forbidden by the laws of quantum mechanics, approximate cloning is possible. A natural way of realizing quantum cloning of photons is by stimulated emission. In this context the fundamental quantum limit to the quality of the clones is imposed by the unavoidable presence of spontaneous emission. In our experiment a single input photon stimulates the emission of additional photons from a source based on parametric down-conversion. This leads to the production of quantum clones with near optimal fidelity. We also demonstrate universality of the copying procedure by showing that the same fidelity is achieved for arbitrary input states.

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Stimulated emission of polarization-entangled photons

Entangled photon pairs -- discrete light quanta that exhibit non-classical correlations -- play a crucial role in quantum information science (for example in demonstrations of quantum non-locality and quantum cryptography). At the macroscopic optical field level non-classical correlations can also be important, as in the case of squeezed light, entangled light beams and teleportation of continuous quantum variables. Here we use stimulated parametric down-conversion to study entangled states of light that bridge the gap between discrete and macroscopic optical quantum correlations. We demonstrate experimentally the onset of laser-like action for entangled photons. This entanglement structure holds great promise in quantum information science where there is a strong demand for entangled states of increasing complexity.

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Experimental violation of a spin-1 Bell inequality using maximally-entangled four-photon states

We demonstrate the first experimental violation of a spin-1 Bell inequality. The spin-1 inequality is a calculation based on the Clauser, Horne, Shimony and Holt formalism. For entangled spin-1 particles the maximum quantum mechanical prediction is 2.552 as opposed to a maximum of 2, predicted using local hidden variables. We obtained an experimental value of 2.27 $\pm 0.02$ using the four-photon state generated by pulsed, type-II, stimulated parametric down-conversion. This is a violation of the spin-1 Bell inequality by more than 13 standard deviations.

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Error-free optical quantum communication

An optical scheme for the reliable transfer of quantum information through a noisy quantum channel is proposed. The scheme is inspired by quantum error-correction protocols, but it avoids the currently infeasible requirement for a controlled-NOT operation between single photons. The quantum communication scheme presented here rejects single bit-flip errors instead of correcting them and combines quantum-measurement properties of three-particle entangled (GHZ) states with properties of quantum teleportation.

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High-Fidelity Teleportation of Independent Qubits

Quantum teleportation is one of the essential primitives of quantum communication. We suggest that any quantum teleportation scheme can be characterized by its efficiency, i.e. how often it succeeds to teleport, its fidelity, i.e. how well the input state is reproduced at the output, and by its insensitivity to cross talk, i.e. how well it rejects an input state that is not intended to teleport. We discuss these criteria for the two teleportation experiments of independent qubits which have been performed thus far. In the first experiment (Nature {\bf 390},575 (1997)) where the qubit states were various different polarization states of photons, the fidelity of teleportation was as high as 0.80 $\pm$ 0.05 thus clearly surpassing the limit of 2/3 which can, in principle, be obtained by a direct measurement on the qubit and classical communication. This high fidelity is confirmed in our second experiment (Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 80}, 3891 (1998)), demonstrating entanglement swapping, that is, realizing the teleportation of a qubit which itself is still entangled to another one. This experiment is the only one up to date that demonstrates the teleportation of a genuine unknown quantum state.

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Observation of three-photon Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger entanglement

We present the experimental observation of polarization entanglement for three spatially separated photons. Such states of more than two entangled particles, known as GHZ states, play a crucial role in fundamental tests of quantum mechanics versus local realism and in many quantum information and quantum computation schemes. Our experimental arrangement is such that we start with two pairs of entangled photons and register one photon in a way that any information as to which pair it belongs to is erased. The registered events at the detectors for the remaining three photons then exhibit the desired GHZ correlations.

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A posteriori teleportation ?

Braunstein and Kimble observe correctly that, in the Innsbruck experiment, Nature 390, 575 (1997), one does not always observe a teleported photon conditioned on a coincidence recording at the Bell-state analyser. However, when a teleported photon appears, it has all the properties required by the teleportation protocol.

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