The evolution of bosons undergoing arbitrary linear unitary transformations quickly becomes hard to predict using classical computers as we increase the number of particles and modes. Photons propagating in a multiport interferometer naturally solve this so-called boson sampling problem(1), thereby motivating the development of technologies that enable precise control of multiphoton interference in large interferometers(2-4). Here, we use novel three-dimensional manufacturing techniques to achieve simultaneous control of all the parameters describing an arbitrary interferometer. We implement a small instance of the boson sampling problem by studying three-photon interference in a five-mode integrated interferometer, confirming the quantum-mechanical predictions. Scaled-up versions of this set-up are a promising way to demonstrate the computational advantage of quantum systems over classical computers. The possibility of implementing arbitrary linear-optical interferometers may also find applications in high-precision measurements and quantum communication(5)

Quantum walk represents one of the most promising resources for the simulation of physical quantum systems, and has also emerged as an alternative to the standard circuit model for quantum computing. Here we investigate how the particle statistics, either bosonic or fermionic, influences a two-particle discrete quantum walk. Such an experiment has been realized by exploiting polarization entanglement to simulate the bunching-antibunching feature of noninteracting bosons and fermions. To this scope a novel three-dimensional geometry for the waveguide circuit is introduced, which allows accurate polarization independent behavior, maintaining remarkable control on both phase and balancement.

ABSTRACT:Boosting nonlinear frequency conversion in extremely confined volumes remains a key challenge in nano-optics, nanomedicine, photocatalysis, and background-free biosensing. To this aim, field enhancements in plasmonic nanostructures are often exploited to effectively compensate for the lack of phase-matching at the nanoscale. Second harmonic generation (SHG) is, however, strongly quenched by the high degree of symmetry in plasmonic materials at the atomic scale and in nanoantenna designs.Here, we devise a plasmonic nanoantenna lacking axial symmetry, which exhibits spatial and frequency mode overlap at both the excitation and the SHG wavelengths. The effective combination of these features in a single device allows obtaining unprecedented SHG conversion efficiency. Our results shed new light on the optimization of SHG at the nanoscale, paving the way to new classes of nanoscale coherent light sources and molecular sensing devices based on nonlinear plasmonic platforms.

Waves fail to propagate in random media. First predicted for quantum particles in the presence of a disordered potential, Anderson localization has been observed also in classical acoustics, electromagnetism and optics. Here, for the first time, we report the observation of Anderson localization of pairs of entangled photons in a two-particle discrete quantum walk affected by position dependent disorder. A quantum walk on a disordered lattice is realized by an integrated array of interferometers fabricated in glass by femtosecond laser writing. A novel technique is used to introduce a controlled phase shift into each unit mesh of the network. Polarization entanglement is exploited to simulate the different symmetries of the two-walker system. We are thus able to experimentally investigate the genuine effect of (bosonic and fermionic) statistics in the absence of interaction between the particles. We will show how different types of randomness and the symmetry of the wave-function affect the localization of the entangled walkers.In 1958 P.W. Anderson [1] predicted that the wavefunction of a quantum particle can be localized in the presence of a static disordered potential. As a consequence of this mechanism it is expected that particle and energy transport through a disordered medium should be strongly suppressed and that an initially localized wave packet should not spread out with time. After more than fifty years from its discovery Anderson localization is still widely studied and it has pervaded many different areas of physics ranging from condensed matter and cold atomic physics to wave dynamics and quantum chaos [2]. This phenomenon emerges quite generically in the behavior of waves in complex media, and it has been experimentally observed in a variety of different systems: BoseEinsten condensates [3,4] Anderson localization is a single-particle process which arises from the destructive interference among different scattering paths. Nevertheless, even in the absence of a direct interaction between particles, pure quantum correlations [13] are expected to influence in a non-trivial way the underlying localization dynamics [14][15][16][17]. By taking advantage of the perfect phase stability provided by miniaturized integrated waveguide circuits [18], we experimentally simulate a quantum walk of a two-photon polarization-entangled state in a disordered medium. We are thus able, through a mapping derived in Ref. [14], to test the localization of a pair of non interacting particles obeying bosonic/fermionic statistics [19].A quantum walk (QW) [20] is an extension of the classical random walk, where the walker goes back and forth along a line and the direction at each step depends on the result of a fair coin flip. At the quantum level, interference and superposition phenomena lead to a non-classical behavior of the walker giving rise to new interesting effects, which can be harnessed to exponentially speed up search algorithms [21] and to realize universal quantum computation [22]. Besides, QWs have also been pr...

A boson sampling device is a specialized quantum computer that solves a problem that is strongly believed to be computationally hard for classical computers. Recently, a number of small-scale implementations have been reported, all based on multiphoton interference in multimode interferometers. Akin to several quantum simulation and computation tasks, an open problem in the hard-to-simulate regime is to what extent the correctness of the boson sampling outcomes can be certified. Here, we report new boson sampling experiments on larger photonic chips and analyse the data using a recently proposed scalable statistical test. We show that the test successfully validates small experimental data samples against the hypothesis that they are uniformly distributed. In addition, we show how to discriminate data arising from either indistinguishable or distinguishable photons. Our results pave the way towards larger boson sampling experiments whose functioning, despite being non-trivial to simulate, can be certified against alternative hypotheses

A novel experiment supports quantum computation using photonic circuits to greatly increase quantum device speed.

The ability to manipulate quantum states of light by integrated devices may open new perspectives both for fundamental tests of quantum mechanics and for novel technological applications. However, the technology for handling polarization-encoded qubits, the most commonly adopted approach, is still missing in quantum optical circuits. Here we demonstrate the first integrated photonic controlled-NOT (CNOT) gate for polarization-encoded qubits. This result has been enabled by the integration, based on femtosecond laser waveguide writing, of partially polarizing beam splitters on a glass chip. We characterize the logical truth table of the quantum gate demonstrating its high fidelity to the expected one. In addition, we show the ability of this gate to transform separable states into entangled ones and vice versa. Finally, the full accessibility of our device is exploited to carry out a complete characterization of the CNOT gate through a quantum process tomography.

This paper provides an overview of the rather new field concerning the applications of femtosecond laser microstructuring of glass to optofluidics. Femtosecond lasers have recently emerged as a powerful microfabrication tool due to their unique characteristics. On the one hand, they enable to induce a permanent refractive index increase, in a micrometer-sized volume of the material, allowing single-step, three-dimensional fabrication of optical waveguides. On the other hand, femtosecond-laser irradiation of fused silica followed by chemical etching enables the manufacturing of directly buried microfluidic channels. This opens the intriguing possibility of using a single laser system for the fabrication and three-dimensional integration of optofluidic devices. This paper will review the state of the art of femtosecond laser fabrication of optical waveguides and microfluidic channels, as well as their integration for high sensitivity detection of biomolecules and for cell manipulation.