Deterministic Generation of Multidimensional Photonic Cluster States with a Single Quantum Emitter

Abstract

Multidimensional photonic graph states, such as cluster states, have prospective applications in quantum metrology, secure quantum communication, and measurement-based quantum computation. However, to date, generation of multidimensional cluster states of photonic qubits has relied on probabilistic methods that limit the scalability of typical generation schemes in optical systems.Here we present an experimental implementation in the microwave domain of a resource-efficient scheme for the deterministic generation of 2D photonic cluster states. By utilizing a coupled resonator array as a slow-light waveguide, a single flux-tunable transmon qubit as a quantum emitter, and a second auxiliary transmon as a switchable mirror, we achieve rapid, shaped emission of entangled photon wavepackets, and selective time-delayed feedback of photon wavepackets to the emitter qubit. We leverage these capabilities to generate a 2D cluster state of four photons with 70% fidelity, as verified by tomographic reconstruction of the quantum state. We discuss how our scheme could be straightforwardly extended to the generation of even larger cluster states, of even higher dimension, thereby expanding the scope and practical utility of such states for quantum information processing tasks.