Integrated sources of photon quantum states based on nonlinear optics

The ability to generate complex optical photon states involving entanglement between multiple optical modes is not only critical to advancing our understanding of quantum mechanics but will play a key role in generating many applications in quantum technologies.These include quantum communications,computation,imaging,microscopy and many other novel technologies that are constantly being proposed.However,approaches to generating parallel multiple,customisable bi-and multi-entangled quantum bits(qubits)on a chip are still in the early stages of development.Here,we review recent advances in the realisation of integrated sources of photonic quantum states,focusing on approaches based on nonlinear optics that are compatible with contemporary optical fibre telecommunications and quantum memory platforms as well as with chip-scale semiconductor technology.These new and exciting platforms hold the promise of compact,low-cost,scalable and practical implementations of sources for the generation and manipulation of complex quantum optical states on a chip,which will play a major role in bringing quantum technologies out of the laboratory and into the real world.

On-chip frequency combs and telecommunications signal processing meet quantum optics

Entangled optical quantum states are essential towards solving questions in fundamental physics and are at the heart of applications in quantum information science. For advancing the research and development of quantum technologies, practical access to the generation and manipulation of photon states carrying significant quantum resources is required. Recently, integrated photonics has become a leading platform for the compact and cost- efficient generation and processing of optical quantum states. Despite significant advances, most on-chip non- classical light sources are still limited to basic bi-photon systems formed by two-dimensional states （i.e., qubits）. An interesting approach beating large potential is the use of the time or frequency domain to enabled the scalable on- chip generation of complex states. In this manuscript, we review recent efforts in using on-chip optical frequency combs for quantum state generation and telecommunica- tions components for their coherent control. In particular, the generation of bi- and multi-photon entangled qubit states has been demonstrated, based on a discrete time domain approach. Moreover, the on-chip generation of high-dimensional entangled states （quDits） has recentlybeen realized, wherein the photons are created in a coherent superposition of multiple pure frequency modes. The time- and frequency-domain states formed with on-chip frequency comb sources were coherently manipulated via off-the-shelf telecommunications compo- nents. Our results suggest that microcavity-based entangled photon states and their coherent control using accessible telecommunication infrastructures can open up new venues for scalable quantum information science.