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Single-Photon Spin-Orbit Coupling for Cluster State Quantum Computation

Cody Leary, Oregon Center for Optics, University of Oregon

(Session 13 : Sunday from 12:30-13:00)

Abstract. When a quasi-paraxial photon propagates through a cylindrically symmetric inhomogeneous transparent medium such that the inhomogeneity is slowly varying over the spatial extent of the photon’s transverse electric field, its spin angular momentum s and its orbital angular momentum l are coupled. That is, photons in eigenmodes with the formerly degenerate propagation constant k but different values of s and l undergo splitting in k according to k + k(A + B s l) in the presence of the inhomogeneity. The constants A and B are both small compared to unity and are determined by the properties of the medium. This is photon spin-orbit coupling (SOC). In the case of a multimode step-index optical fiber, this k splitting gives rise to a rotational effect in the transverse spatial field distributions of the higher order fiber modes, in which left (right) circularly polarized modes resembling free-space Hermite-Gauss (H-G) modes rotate clockwise (counterclockwise) as they propagate through the fiber. Due to these rotations, single-photon SOC can be used to exploit the transverse spatial photonic degrees of freedom in order to create cluster states for use in fiber-based linear optical quantum computation. We propose fiber-based spin-orbit fusion gate elements towards the creation of cluster states entangled in H-G mode.