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Nai-Le Liu

Publications and source records attributed to Nai-Le Liu.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

Implementation of a 46-node quantum metropolitan area network

Quantum key distribution (QKD) enables secure key exchanges between two remote users. The ultimate goal of secure communication is to establish a global quantum network. The existing field tests suggest that quantum networks are feasible. To achieve a practical quantum network, we need to overcome several challenges, including realising versatile topologies for large scales, simple network maintenance, extendable configuration, and robustness to node failures. To this end, we present a field operation of a quantum metropolitan-area network with 46 nodes and show that all these challenges can be overcome with cutting-edge quantum technologies. In particular, we realise different topological structures and continuously run the network for 31 months, by employing standard equipment for network maintenance with an extendable configuration. We realise QKD pairing and key management with a sophisticated key control center. In this implementation, the final keys have been used for secure communication such as real-time voice telephone, text messaging, and file transmission with one-time pad encryption, which can support 11 pairs of users to make audio calls simultaneously. Combined with inter-city quantum backbone and ground-satellite links, our metropolitan implementation paves the way toward a global quantum network.

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Directly Measuring a Multiparticle Quantum Wave Function via Quantum Teleportation

We propose a new method to directly measure a general multi-particle quantum wave function, a single matrix element in a multi-particle density matrix, by quantum teleportation. The density matrix element is embedded in a virtual logical qubit and is nondestructively teleported to a single physical qubit for readout. We experimentally implement this method to directly measure the wavefunction of a photonic mixed quantum state beyond a single photon using a single observable for the first time. Our method also provides an exponential advantage over the standard quantum state tomography in measurement complexity to fully characterize a sparse multi-particle quantum state.

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Phase-Programmable Gaussian Boson Sampling Using Stimulated Squeezed Light

The tantalizing promise of quantum computational speedup in solving certain problems has been strongly supported by recent experimental evidence from a high-fidelity 53-qubit superconducting processor1 and Gaussian boson sampling (GBS) with up to 76 detected photons. Analogous to the increasingly sophisticated Bell tests that continued to refute local hidden variable theories, quantum computational advantage tests are expected to provide increasingly compelling experimental evidence against the Extended Church-Turing thesis. In this direction, continued competition between upgraded quantum hardware and improved classical simulations is required. Here, we report a new GBS experiment that produces up to 113 detection events out of a 144-mode photonic circuit. We develop a new high-brightness and scalable quantum light source, exploring the idea of stimulated squeezed photons, which has simultaneously near-unity purity and efficiency. This GBS is programmable by tuning the phase of the input squeezed states. We demonstrate a new method to efficiently validate the samples by inferring from computationally friendly subsystems, which rules out hypotheses including distinguishable photons and thermal states. We show that our noisy GBS experiment passes the nonclassicality test using an inequality, and we reveal non-trivial genuine high-order correlation in the GBS samples, which are evidence of robustness against possible classical simulation schemes. The photonic quantum computer, Jiuzhang 2.0, yields a Hilbert space dimension up to $10^{43}$, and a sampling rate $10^{24}$ faster than using brute-force simulation on supercomputers.

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Experimental demonstration of quantum pigeonhole paradox

We experimentally demonstrate that when three single photons transmit through two polarization channels, in a well-defined pre- and postselected ensemble, there are no two photons in the same polarization channel by weak-strength measurement, a counter-intuitive quantum counting effect called quantum pigeonhole paradox. We further show that this effect breaks down in second-order measurement. These results indicate the existence of quantum pigeonhole paradox and its operating regime.

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Distributed quantum phase estimation with entangled photons

Distributed quantum metrology can enhance the sensitivity for sensing spatially distributed parameters beyond the classical limits. Here we demonstrate distributed quantum phase estimation with discrete variables to achieve Heisenberg limit phase measurements. Based on parallel entanglement in modes and particles, we demonstrate distributed quantum sensing for both individual phase shifts and an averaged phase shift, with an error reduction up to 1.4 dB and 2.7 dB below the shot-noise limit. Furthermore, we demonstrate a combined strategy with parallel mode entanglement and multiple passes of the phase shifter in each mode. In particular, our experiment uses six entangled photons with each photon passing the phase shifter up to six times, and achieves a total number of photon passes N=21 at an error reduction up to 4.7 dB below the shot-noise limit. Our research provides a faithful verification of the benefit of entanglement and coherence for distributed quantum sensing in general quantum networks.

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Heralded non-destructive quantum entangling gate with single-photon sources

Heralded entangling quantum gates are an essential element for the implementation of large-scale optical quantum computation. Yet, the experimental demonstration of genuine heralded entangling gates with free-flying output photons in linear optical system, was hindered by the intrinsically probabilistic source and double-pair emission in parametric down-conversion. Here, by using an on-demand single-photon source based on a semiconductor quantum dot embedded in a micro-pillar cavity, we demonstrate a heralded controlled-NOT (CNOT) operation between two single photons for the first time. To characterize the performance of the CNOT gate, we estimate its average quantum gate fidelity of ($87.8\pm1.2$)%. As an application, we generated event-ready Bell states with a fidelity of ($83.4\pm2.4$)%. Our results are an important step towards the development of photon-photon quantum logic gates.

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Quantum computational advantage using photons

Gaussian boson sampling exploits squeezed states to provide a highly efficient way to demonstrate quantum computational advantage. We perform experiments with 50 input single-mode squeezed states with high indistinguishability and squeezing parameters, which are fed into a 100-mode ultralow-loss interferometer with full connectivity and random transformation, and sampled using 100 high-efficiency single-photon detectors. The whole optical set-up is phase-locked to maintain a high coherence between the superposition of all photon number states. We observe up to 76 output photon-clicks, which yield an output state space dimension of $10^{30}$ and a sampling rate that is $10^{14}$ faster than using the state-of-the-art simulation strategy and supercomputers. The obtained samples are validated against various hypotheses including using thermal states, distinguishable photons, and uniform distribution.

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Cloning of Quantum Entanglement

Quantum no-cloning, the impossibility of perfectly cloning an arbitrary unknown quantum state, is one of the most fundamental limitations due to the laws of quantum mechanics, which underpin the physical security of quantum key distribution. Quantum physics does allow, however, approximate cloning with either imperfect state fidelity and/or probabilistic success. Whereas approximate quantum cloning of single-particle states has been tested previously, experimental cloning of quantum entanglement -- a highly non-classical correlation -- remained unexplored. Based on a multiphoton linear optics platform, we demonstrate quantum cloning of two photon entangled states for the first time. Remarkably our results show that one maximally entangled photon pair can be broadcast into two entangled pairs, both with state fidelities above 50\%. Our results are a key step towards cloning of complex quantum systems, and are likely to provide new insights into quantum entanglement.

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Open-destination measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution network

Quantum key distribution (QKD) networks hold promise for sharing secure randomness over multi-partities. Most existing QKD network schemes and demonstrations are based on trusted relays or limited to point-to-point scenario. Here, we propose a flexible and extensible scheme named as open-destination measurement-device-independent QKD network. The scheme enjoys security against untrusted relays and all detector side-channel attacks. Particularly, any users can accomplish key distribution under assistance of others in the network. As an illustration, we show in detail a four-user network where two users establish secure communication and present realistic simulations by taking into account imperfections of both sources and detectors.

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Quantum teleportation of physical qubits into logical code-spaces

Quantum error correction is an essential tool for reliably performing tasks for processing quantum information on a large scale. However, integration into quantum circuits to achieve these tasks is problematic when one realizes that non-transverse operations, which are essential for universal quantum computation, lead to the spread of errors. Quantum gate teleportation has been proposed as an elegant solution for this. Here, one replaces these fragile, non-transverse inline gates with the generation of specific, highly entangled offline resource states that can be teleported into the circuit to implement the non-transverse gate. As the first important step, we create a maximally entangled state between a physical and an error-correctable logical qubit and use it as a teleportation resource. We then demonstrate the teleportation of quantum information encoded on the physical qubit into the error-corrected logical qubit with fidelities up to 0.786. Our scheme can be designed to be fully fault-tolerant so that it can be used in future large-scale quantum technologies.

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Demonstration of Topological Data Analysis on a Quantum Processor

Topological data analysis offers a robust way to extract useful information from noisy, unstructured data by identifying its underlying structure. Recently, an efficient quantum algorithm was proposed [Lloyd, Garnerone, Zanardi, Nat. Commun. 7, 10138 (2016)] for calculating Betti numbers of data points -- topological features that count the number of topological holes of various dimensions in a scatterplot. Here, we implement a proof-of-principle demonstration of this quantum algorithm by employing a six-photon quantum processor to successfully analyze the topological features of Betti numbers of a network including three data points, providing new insights into data analysis in the era of quantum computing.

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An Experimentally Verified Approach to non-Entanglement-Breaking Channel Certification

Ensuring the non-entanglement-breaking (non-EB) property of quantum channels is crucial for the effective distribution and storage of quantum states. However, a practical method for direct and accurate certification of the non-EB feature is highly desirable. Here, we propose and verify a realistic source based measurement device independent certification of non-EB channels. Our method is resilient to repercussions on the certification from experimental conditions, such as multiphotons and imperfect state preparation, and can be implemented with information incomplete set. We achieve good agreement between experimental outcomes and theoretical predictions, which is validated by the expected results of the ideal semi-quantum signaling game, and accurately certify the non-EB channels. Furthermore, our approach is highly robust to effects from noise. Therefore, the proposed approach can be expected to play a significant role in the design and evaluation of realistic quantum channels.

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Photonic realization of quantum resetting

Contrary to the usual assumption of at least partial control of quantum dynamics, a surprising recent result proved that an arbitrary quantum state can be probabilistically reset to a state in the past by having it interact with probing systems in a consistent, but $uncontrolled$ way. We present a photonic implementation to achieve this resetting process, experimentally verifying that a state can be probabilistically reset to its past with a fidelity of $0.870\pm0.012$. We further demonstrate the preservation of an entangled state, which still violates a Bell inequality, after half of the entangled pair was reset. The ability to reset uncontrolled quantum states has implications in the foundations of quantum physics and applications in areas of quantum technology.

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Experimental Quantum Network Coding

Distributing quantum state and entanglement between distant nodes is a crucial task in distributed quantum information processing on large-scale quantum networks. Quantum network coding provides an alternative solution for quantum state distribution especially when the bottleneck problems must be considered and high communication speed is required. Here, we report the first experimental realization of quantum network coding on the butterfly network. With the help of prior entanglements shared between senders, two quantum states can be crossly transmitted perfectly through the butterfly network. We demonstrate this protocol by employing eight photons generated via spontaneous parametric down-conversion. We observe cross-transmission of single-photon states with an average fidelity of $0.9685\pm0.0013$, and that of two-photon entanglement with an average fidelity of $0.9611\pm0.0061$, both of which are greater than the theoretical upper bounds without prior entanglement.

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Experimental quantum repeater without quantum memory

Quantum repeaters -- important components of a scalable quantum internet -- enable the entanglement to be distributed over long distances. The standard paradigm for a quantum repeater relies on a necessary demanding requirement of quantum memory. Despite significant progress, the limited performance of quantum memory makes practical quantum repeaters still a great challenge. Remarkably, a proposed all-photonic quantum repeater avoids the need for quantum memory by harnessing the graph states in the repeater nodes. Here we perform an experimental demonstration of an all-photonic quantum repeater using linear optics. By manipulating a 12-photon interferometer, we implement a 2-by-2 parallel all-photonic quantum repeater, and observe an 89% enhancement of entanglement-generation rate over the standard parallel entanglement swapping. These results open a new way towards designing repeaters with efficient single-photon sources and photonic graph states, and suggest that the all-photonic scheme represents an alternative path -- parallel to that of matter-memory-based schemes -- towards realizing practical quantum repeaters.

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Experimental nonlocal measurement of a product observable

Nonlocal measurement, or instantaneous measurement of nonlocal observables, is a considerably difficult task even for a simple form of product observable since relativistic causality prohibits interaction between spacelike separate subsystems. Following a recent proposal for effectively creating the von Neumann measurement Hamiltonian of nonlocal observables [Brodutch and Cohen, Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 070404 (2016)], here we report a proof-of-principle demonstration of nonlocally measuring a product observable using linear optics without the violation of relativistic causality. Our scheme provides a feasible approach to perform nonlocal measurements via quantum erasure with linear optics.

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Emergence of Classical Objectivity of Quantum Darwinism in a Photonic Quantum Simulator

Quantum-to-classical transition is a fundamental open question in physics frontier. Quantum decoherence theory points out that the inevitable interaction with environment is a sink carrying away quantum coherence, which is responsible for the suppression of quantum superposition in open quantum system. Recently, quantum Darwinism theory further extends the role of environment, serving as communication channel, to explain the classical objectivity emerging in quantum measurement process. Here, we used a six-photon quantum simulator to investigate classical and quantum information proliferation in quantum Darwinism process. In the simulation, many environmental photons are scattered from an observed quantum system and they are collected and used to infer the system's state. We observed redundancy of system's classical information and suppression of quantum correlation in the fragments of environmental photons. Our results experimentally show that the classical objectivity of quantum system can be established through quantum Darwinism mechanism.

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Quantum teleportation in high dimensions

Precise measurement or perfect cloning of unknown quantum states is forbidden by the laws of quantum mechanics. Yet, quantum teleportation in principle allows for a faithful and disembodied transmission of unknown quantum states between distant quantum systems using entanglement. There have been numerous experiments on teleportation of quantum states of single photons, atoms, trapped ions, defects in solid states, and superconducting circuits. However, all demonstrations to date were limited to a two-dimensional subspace$-$so-called qubit$-$of the quantized multiple levels of the quantum systems. In general, a quantum particle can naturally possess not only multiple degrees of freedom, but also, many degrees of freedom can have high quantum number beyond the simplified two-level subspace. Here, making use of multiport beam-splitters and ancillary single photons, we propose a resource-efficient and extendable scheme for teleportation of arbitrarily high-dimensional photonic quantum states. We report the first experimental teleportation of a qutrit, which is equivalent to a spin-1 system. Measurements over a complete set of 12 states in mutually unbiased bases yield a teleportation fidelity of 0.75(1), well above the optimal single-copy qutrit-state-estimation limit of 1/2. The fidelity also exceeds the limit of 2/3, the maximum possible for explanation through qubits only. Thus, we strictly prove a genuine three-dimensional, universal, and highly non-classical quantum teleportation. Combining previous methods of teleportation of two-particle composite states and multiple degrees of freedom, our work provides a complete toolbox for teleporting a quantum particle intact. We expect that our results will pave the way for quantum technology applications in high dimensions, since teleportation plays a central role in quantum repeaters and quantum networks.

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