• CQuIC Seminars

April 2, 2026 3:30 PM - April 2, 2026 4:30 PM
PAIS 2540

Host:

Ivan Deutsch

Presenter:

Nils Otterstrom

Zoom Link

Abstract:  Historically an underdog, photonic quantum computing (QC) has recently emerged as a dark horse candidate in the race for scalable quantum computing systems. Unlike many qubit technologies (e.g. superconducting qubits) optical photons preserve their quantum properties at room temperature and are impervious to many sources of noise. However, due to the lack of single-photon nonlinearities, linear optical quantum computing operations rely on heralded probabilistic gates, in stark contrast to their deterministic counterparts of more conventional QC circuit paradigms. While enabling resilience against decoherence, these low probability gates demand significant physical redundancy, resulting in high hardware overhead, especially for systems relying on conventional path encoding. To this end, a new photonic QC paradigm, called quantum frequency processing, holds promise to dramatically improve resource efficiency by encoding quantum information in the frequency of light. Instead of two waveguides for every qubit, as required by path encoding, quantum frequency processing imbues a single waveguide with the ability to convey hundreds of photonic qubits simultaneously, offering massive scaling advantages in a time where current estimates indicate the need for millions of photonic qubits to achieve useful fault-tolerant quantum machines. In this talk, I will present the frequency-based EPIQ QC architecture as well as our most recent results in developing new photonic devices for frequency quantum information processing. In particular, I will show how the frequency domain enables new approaches for memory-assisted multiplexed resource state generators, opening the door to generation rates that are orders of magnitude larger than non-multiplexed sources. I will also show how powerful frequency-domain operations are possible with advanced acousto-optic silicon photonic circuits, fabricated in the CMOS foundry facilities at Sandia’s Microsystems Engineering, Science and Applications (MESA) center.

Zoom password availible upon request, email nlordi AT unm.edu