Southwest Quantum Information and Technology

Arbitrary unitary transformation of temporal modes

Presenting Author: James Ashby, University of Oregon
Contributing Author(s): Brian Smith

Controlling the temporal mode shape of a quantum light pulses has wide ranging application to optical quantum technologies, including quantum key distribution with pulsed mode encoding, continuous-variable cluster state manipulation, linear-optics quantum computation, and enhanced quantum sensing. We propose a realistic linear optical system that can perform arbitrary unitary transformations on a set of temporal modes. First we show that any unitary transformation on pulsed modes can be decomposed into a sequence of temporal phase modulations and Fourier transforms on optical pulses. It is shown that this sequence of transformations can be performed on optical pulses using electro-optic phase modulators and dispersive optical elements. We show that photonic arbitrary waveform generation can be used to drive the phase modulators. Simulated results demonstrate that targeted transformations can be achieved with near unit fidelity and efficiency. Additionally, we provide preliminary experimental results.

(Session : from 5:00pm - 7:00pm)