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# Conditional generation of arbitrary multimode entangled states of light with linear optics

## I Introduction

The generation of nonclassical states of light is one of the primary research areas in quantum optics. In particular, the preparation of entangled states of light has attracted a considerable amount of attention recently, since these states have been identified as a key resource for quantum information processing Nielsen00 . Other interesting applications of the entangled states include, for instance, ultra-high precision measurements Yurke86 ; Hillery93 ; Brif96 ; Dowling98  and quantum optical lithography Boto00 ; Bjork00 ; DAngelo01 .

The range of interactions between light fields that are experimentally accessible and feasible is rather limited, which restricts the class of quantum states of the optical field that can be generated in the lab. However, this class can be significantly extended if one considers probabilistic generation schemes, whose success is conditioned on the detection of a particular outcome of a measurement performed on some ancilla system. Schemes for probabilistic preparation of Fock states DAriano00 , arbitrary superpositions of Fock states of single-mode field Vogel93 ; Dakna99 , and superpositions of classically distinguishable states (Schrödinger-cat-like states) Song90 ; Dakna97 , have been found. Several setups for the generation of two-mode $`N`$-photon path-entangled states have been suggested Lee02 ; Fiurasek02 ; Kok02 ; Zou02 ; Cerf02cat . Recently, the experimental conditional preparation of a single-photon Fock state with negative Wigner function has been reported Lvovsky01 .

However, all the above mentioned schemes are still quite restrictive since they are capable to prepare only single-mode states or only a particular class of two-mode states (such as the $`N`$-photon states). In this paper, we design a truly universal scheme that can be used to probabilistically generate an arbitrary multimode entangled state of light, provided that each mode does not contain more than $`N`$ photons, where $`N`$ is an arbitrary but finite integer. The resources required for the present scheme comprise the passive linear optical elements (beam splitters and phase shifters), single photon sources, strong coherent laser beams, and photodetectors. It was shown recently that these resources are sufficient for performing universal quantum computing Knill01 ; Pittman01 ; Ralph02 ; Franson02 ; Pittman02 ; Pittman03 . Our proposal provides another illustration of the surprising versatility and power of such an approach, relying only on linear optics and single photons. In this context it is worth mentioning that, very recently, Clausen et al. suggested a scheme for approximate conditional implementation of general single- or multi-mode operators acting on states of traveling optical field Clausen03 . The scheme described in Clausen03  is also based on linear optics and may be in principle used for (approximate) quantum state preparation. We emphasize that the approach proposed in the present paper conceptually differs from that of Ref. Clausen03 . We are primarily interested in exact state preparation and our setup is specifically tailored for that purpose.

We will first explain all the essential features of the state-preparation procedure on the simplest yet nontrivial example of two-mode entangled state that is formed by a superposition of two product states,

$$|\psi _{AB}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{𝒩}}(|f_A|f^{}_B+e^{i\theta }|g_A|g^{}_B),$$
(1)
where $`𝒩`$ is a normalization factor. Then we will generalize the preparation procedure and design a scheme for the generation of arbitrary multimode entangled states of light. We note in passing that even the simple entangled states (1) may find applications in the investigations of the foundations of quantum mechanics. For instance, it was shown recently that the states of the form (1) yield a strong violation of Bell-CHSH inequalities when Alice and Bob perform balanced homodyne measurements followed by an appropriate binning Wenger03 .

The paper is structured as follows. In Section II, we propose a method to probabilistically generate the two-mode entangled state (1) with the help of passive linear optics, single photon sources, strong coherent laser fields and photodetectors. In section III we shall extend our scheme to allow for more than two modes and more than two terms in the superposition. We will thus design a universal device that enables one to conditionally prepare an arbitrary multimode state of light. Finally, the conclusions are drawn in Section IV.

## II Conditional generation of two-mode entangled states

Let us first note that, in order to simplify the notation, we shall omit the normalization factors in front of the quantum states in what follows.

Since the state $`|\psi _{AB}`$ is rather complicated, we divide its preparation into several steps. The main simplification stems from the observation that the entangled state (1) can be prepared by means of entanglement swapping Zukowski93 ; Pan98 ; Jennewein02  if we possess the two three-mode states

$`|\varphi _A`$ $`=`$ $`|f_{A_1}|V_{A_2}+|g_{A_1}|H_{A_2},`$ (2)
$`|\varphi ^{}_B`$ $`=`$ $`|f^{}_{B_1}|V_{B_2}+|g^{}_{B_1}|H_{B_2},`$ (3)
where $`|V`$ and $`|H`$ denote the state of a single photon in spatial mode $`A_2`$ (or $`B_2`$) that is polarized vertically or horizontally, respectively. As shown in Fig. 1, we easily obtain the state (1) from the state $`|\varphi _A|\varphi ^{}_B`$ if we project the single photons in spatial modes $`A_2`$ and $`B_2`$ onto the maximally entangled Bell state

$$|\mathrm{\Phi }=|V|V+e^{i\theta }|H|H.$$
(4)
The generation of state (1) thus boils down to the preparation of the entangled state (2). \[State (3) can be prepared similarly\]. This latter task will be accomplished with the help of a quantum non-demolition (QND) measurement of a single photon, which creates entanglement.

### II.1 QND measurement

The proposed setup is depicted in Fig. 2. The input polarization modes $`1V`$ and $`1H`$ are prepared in the pure single-mode states $`|\stackrel{~}{f}`$ and $`|\stackrel{~}{g}`$ that contain no more than $`N+1`$ photons,

$$|\stackrel{~}{f}=\underset{n=0}{\overset{N+1}{}}\stackrel{~}{f}_n|n,|\stackrel{~}{g}=\underset{n=0}{\overset{N+1}{}}\stackrel{~}{g}_n|n,$$
(5)
where $`|n`$ denotes the $`n`$-photon Fock state. The states (5) are, of course, closely related to the states $`|f=_{n=0}^Nf_n|n`$ and $`|g=_{n=0}^Ng_n|n`$ appearing in Eq. (2). The exact relationship between them will be specified later. Note that it was shown by Dakna et al. Dakna99  that the single-mode states (5) can be probabilistically generated with the help of passive linear optics, single photon sources, strong coherent laser pulses and photodetectors with single photon sensitivity.

As shown in Fig. 2, the input beam containing the states $`|\stackrel{~}{f}`$ and $`|\stackrel{~}{g}`$ in the $`V`$ and $`H`$ polarization modes impinges on a beam splitter $`BS_1`$ with transmittance $`t_1`$ and reflectance $`r_1`$. The purpose of this beam splitter is to separate a single photon from one of the input states and thus create entanglement. Of course, $`BS_1`$ may split more than one photon or no photon at all. Therefore we must verify that there is exactly a single photon present in the output spatial mode $`2`$, without disturbing its polarization state. Such QND measurements of a single photon have been recently thoroughly discussed in Ref. Kok02QND  where several schemes have been proposed and analyzed.

One possible method relies on teleportation Bennett93 ; Zeilinger97 . With the help of the conditional C-NOT gate for photonic qubits Knill01  we have to first prepare the singlet state $`|VH_{34}|HV_{34}`$ in the auxiliary modes $`34`$. Then we teleport the polarization state of a photon in mode $`2`$ onto the photon in mode $`4`$ by performing a Bell measurement on modes $`2`$ and $`3`$. This measurement should be carried out with two detectors that are capable to resolve the number of photons. If exactly two photons are detected in coincidence at the two detectors, then we know that there was a single photon in mode $`2`$ and its polarization state has been coherently transfered onto the state of a single photon in mode $`4`$.

Kok et al. also proposed QND measurement schemes that do not require a-priori entanglement Kok02QND . For our purposes it suffices to employ the simple interferometric scheme depicted in Fig. 3 which performs a partial QND photon number measurement. The coincident detection of a single photon in detectors $`PD_1`$ and $`PD_2`$ indicates that there was at least one photon in the input mode. Moreover, if there was exactly a single photon at the input, then its polarization state is unperturbed by the measurement. The probability of successful QND measurement of a single photon provided that there is a single photon in the spatial mode $`2`$ is equal to $`1/8`$. In the preparation scheme shown in Fig. 1 the two QND measurements are followed by the entanglement swapping that succeeds only if each photodetector in Fig. 1 detects exactly one photon. In this way we select the events when there is exactly a single photon in each mode $`A_2`$ and $`B_2`$.

The state after the QND measurement can be written in the form

$$|\varphi _{\mathrm{QND}}=B_1|\stackrel{~}{f}_{1V}B_0|\stackrel{~}{g}_{1H}|V_2+B_0|\stackrel{~}{f}_{1V}B_1|\stackrel{~}{g}_{1H}|H_2,$$
(6)
where the non-unitary operators $`B_0`$ and $`B_1`$ describe removal of none or a single photon at $`\mathrm{BS}_1`$, respectively,

$`B_0`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}t_1^n|nn|,`$
$`B_1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}\sqrt{n+1}t_1^nr_1|nn+1|.`$ (7)
### II.2 Quantum erasure

The QND measurement has thus created the entanglement. Still, $`B_j|\stackrel{~}{f}`$ and $`B_j|\stackrel{~}{g}`$ are states of two different polarization modes while $`|f`$ and $`|g`$ in Eq. (2) are states of a single mode. We achieve this by erasing the information about the polarization. This is done with the help of a polarizing beam splitter $`PBS_2`$, see Fig. 2. The beam splitter is rotated such that it combines the $`V`$ and $`H`$ polarizations. If we associate the annihilation operators $`a_{1V}`$ and $`a_{1H}`$ with the modes $`1V`$ and $`1H`$, then the transformation carried out by $`PBS_2`$ is given by

$`a_{1X}=r_2a_{1V}+t_2a_{1H},`$
$`a_{1Y}=r_2a_{1H}t_2a_{1V},`$ (8)
where the polarization modes $`1X`$ and $`1Y`$ are spatially separated at the output of $`PBS_2`$ as indicated in Fig. 2. The erasing succeeds if and only if the detector $`PD`$ placed on the $`1Y`$ mode does not detect any photon, which ensures that all photons have been transmitted to the linearly polarized output mode $`1X`$.

Since the input states do not contain more than $`N+1`$ photons each and since a single photon was subtracted on $`BS_1`$, the state after erasure of the polarization information reads

$$|\varphi _{\mathrm{PBS}}=\underset{n=0}{\overset{2N+1}{}}(f_n|n|V+g_n|n|H).$$
(9)
where the output complex amplitudes $`f_n`$ and $`g_n`$ are given by the following formula,

$`f_n`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{n}{}}}\sqrt{k+1}\sqrt{\left({\displaystyle \genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n}{k}}\right)}t_1^nr_1r_2^kt_2^{nk}\stackrel{~}{f}_{k+1}\stackrel{~}{g}_{nk},`$
$`g_n`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{n}{}}}\sqrt{k+1}\sqrt{\left({\displaystyle \genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n}{k}}\right)}t_1^nr_1r_2^{nk}t_2^k\stackrel{~}{g}_{k+1}\stackrel{~}{f}_{nk}.`$
It follows that we can fix the values of output coefficients $`f_n`$ by properly choosing the complex amplitudes of the input states. We have the recurrence equations

$`\stackrel{~}{f}_{n+1}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{f_nF_n}{\sqrt{n+1}t_1^nr_1r_2^n\stackrel{~}{g}_0}},`$
$`F_n`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{k=0}{\overset{n1}{}}}\sqrt{k+1}\sqrt{\left({\displaystyle \genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n}{k}}\right)}t_1^nr_1r_2^kt_2^{nk}\stackrel{~}{f}_{k+1}\stackrel{~}{g}_{nk},`$
and a similar formula holds for $`\stackrel{~}{g}_{n+1}`$. The amplitudes $`\stackrel{~}{f}_{n+1}`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{g}_{n+1}`$ are calculated as follows. First, some nonzero values for $`\stackrel{~}{f}_0`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{g}_0`$ are chosen. Then one uses repeatedly Eq. (LABEL:inoutsolution) to calculate $`\stackrel{~}{f}_{n+1}`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{g}_{n+1}`$ from $`\stackrel{~}{f}_k`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{g}_k`$, $`0kn`$, and the iterations stop at $`n=N`$.

We have thus almost obtained the state (2). However, while the effective states $`|f`$ and $`|g`$ in (9) have the correct structure in the subspace spanned by the first $`N+1`$ Fock states $`|0,|1,\mathrm{},|N`$, they also contain an unwanted tail in the subspace spanned by the Fock states $`|N+1,\mathrm{},|2N+1`$.

### II.3 Quantum state truncation

The last step in our scheme is to get rid of that tail. We do so with the help of the quantum scissors Pegg98 ; Koniorczyk00 ; VillasBoas01 ; Ozdemir01 ; Babichev02  that will project the state in the mode $`1`$ onto the subspace spanned by the first $`N+1`$ Fock states. This action is formally described by the projector $`\mathrm{\Pi }_{QS}=_{n=0}^N|nn|`$. After this truncation, we finally obtain the target entangled state (2) in the output modes 1 and 2 of our device.

The quantum scissors have been discussed in detail in several recent papers Pegg98 ; Koniorczyk00 ; VillasBoas01 ; Ozdemir01 ; Babichev02 . The schemes proposed there can be implemented with the use of linear optics, single photon sources, and photodetectors. The setup that we shall consider in the present paper is depicted in Fig. 4. The modes $`2`$ and $`3`$ are prepared in a pure $`N`$-photon two-mode entangled state

$$|\psi _{23}=\underset{k=0}{\overset{N}{}}c_k|k_2|Nk_3.$$
(12)
It was shown recently that these states may be conditionally generated with the help of linear optics, single photon sources and photodetectors Lee02 ; Fiurasek02 ; Kok02 ; Zou02 . We then combine the modes $`1`$ and $`2`$ on a balanced beam splitter and measure the number of photons in output modes $`1`$ and $`2`$ by means of two photodetectors $`PD_1`$ and $`PD_2`$ with single-photon resolution. The truncation is a conditional operation that succeeds when certain particular measurement outcome has been detected, say, no photons at $`PD_1`$ and $`N`$ photons at $`PD_2`$, which we denote as $`(0,N)`$. Note, that one could also consider other detection events, but the total number of photons detected by the photodetectors should be equal to $`N`$. The quantum scissors is essentially a quantum state teleportation in the subspace of the first $`N+1`$ Fock states, where the state (12) serves as the quantum channel, and the Bell-type measurement is carried out with the use of the beam splitter in Fig. 4 that couples the modes $`1`$ and $`2`$.

For our particular choice of the detection event $`(0,N)`$, and assuming a balanced beam splitter, we find that

$$c_k=\sqrt{P_{\mathrm{QS}}}\frac{\sqrt{k!(Nk)!}}{2^{N/2}\sqrt{N!}},$$
(13)
should hold, where

$$P_{\mathrm{QS}}=\left(\underset{k=0}{\overset{N}{}}\frac{k!(Nk)!}{2^NN!}\right)^1$$
(14)
is the probability of the successful quantum-state truncation that projects onto the subspace spanned by $`|0,|1,\mathrm{},|N`$.

## III General scheme

So far we have considered the generation of a two-mode state that consists of a superposition of two product states. In this section we shall generalize our scheme in several ways.

### III.1 $`M`$-mode entangled state

First, we will discuss the preparation of a $`M`$-mode entangled state which has a form limited to the superposition of two product states, namely

$$|\psi =|f_1|f_2\mathrm{}|f_M+e^{i\theta }|g_1|g_2\mathrm{}|g_M.$$
(15)
To prepare this state, we first generate $`M`$ states

$$|\varphi _j=|f_j|V+|g_j|H$$
(16)
as before, and then project the $`M`$ single photons onto the maximally entangled state

$$|GHZ=|VV\mathrm{}V+e^{i\theta }|HH\mathrm{}H.$$
(17)
This projection can be performed with the Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) state analyzer described by Pan and Zeilinger Pan98GHZ . This analyzer consists of polarizing beam splitters and half-wave plates and allows one to distinguish two GHZ states of M qubits.

### III.2 Arbitrary two-mode entangled states

Our second generalization extends the preparation procedure to two-mode states that are superpositions of $`d`$ product states,

$$|\psi _{AB}=\underset{j=1}{\overset{d}{}}e^{i\theta _j}|f_j_A|g_j_B.$$
(18)
Obviously, a natural strategy is to prepare this state via $`d`$-dimensional entanglement swapping from two states of the form

$$|\varphi _{AC}=\underset{j=1}{\overset{d}{}}|f_j_A|1_{jC},|\varphi _{BD}=\underset{j=1}{\overset{d}{}}|g_j_B|1_{jD},$$
(19)
where $`|1_j`$ denotes a state of a single photon in the $`j`$th auxiliary spatial mode. To prepare the states (19), we proceed essentially as in Sec. II. The extended scheme is depicted in Fig. 5. Initially, $`d`$ spatial modes are prepared in states $`|\stackrel{~}{f}_j`$. The array of $`d`$ beam splitters $`BS_j`$ extracts, with a certain probability, a single photon. We must verify the presence of exactly one single photon in total in the modes $`1^{},\mathrm{},d^{}`$ while preserving the coherence among these modes by performing a QND measurement. This can be accomplished by $`d`$-dimensional teleportation similarly as discussed in Section II. However, this time we need to teleport a qudit encoded as a state of a single photon in $`d`$ spatial modes. Fortunately, it was shown recently that the probabilistic gates for quantum computing with linear optics Knill01 ; Pittman01 ; Ralph02 ; Franson02 ; Pittman02 , that were introduced for qubits, can be easily extended to qudits Dusek01 . This means that all the necessary manipulations, such as the generation of maximally entangled state of two qudits and the Bell measurement, can be probabilistically carried out with the resources that we assume here.

After the QND measurement, we must erase the spatial information contained in the resulting state

$$|\psi _{QND}=\underset{j=1}{\overset{d}{}}\left(\underset{k=1}{\overset{d}{}}B_{\delta _{j,k}}|\stackrel{~}{f}_k\right)|1_j,$$
(20)
where $`B_j`$ are given by Eq. (7). This is done by the second array of $`d1`$ beam splitters indicated by the shaded zone in Fig. 5. The preparation is finished by the application of the quantum scissors, that truncate the Fock state expansion of the output state at $`N`$ photons.

Suppose that the output mode after erasing is a balanced linear superposition of all $`d`$ modes

$$a_{\mathrm{out}}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{d}}\underset{j=1}{\overset{d}{}}a_j.$$
(21)
The complex amplitudes of the states $`|f_j=_nf_{j,n}|n`$ can then be expressed in terms of the complex amplitudes of the input states $`\stackrel{~}{f}_{j,n}`$ as follows

$$f_{j,n}=\sqrt{n!}\frac{t_1^nr_1}{d^{n/2}}\underset{𝒏}{}^{}\sqrt{n_j+1}\frac{\stackrel{~}{f}_{j,n_j+1}}{\sqrt{n_j!}}\underset{kj}{}\frac{\stackrel{~}{f}_{k,n_k}}{\sqrt{n_k!}},$$
(22)
where the prime indicates summation over all $`𝒏=(n_1,\mathrm{},n_d)`$ satisfying the constraint $`_{k=1}^dn_k=n`$. Note that the formula (22) may be easily inverted and we can determine the complex amplitudes $`\stackrel{~}{f}_{j,k}`$ of the input states for any given prescribed output states $`|f_j`$.

### III.3 Universal scheme

Finally, we point out that those two generalizations can be combined and we can thus generate an arbitrary multimode entangled state of light where each mode contains no more than $`N`$ photons. Any $`M`$-mode state of this kind can be written as a superposition of no more than $`d=(N+1)^M`$ product states,

$$|\psi =\underset{j=1}{\overset{d}{}}e^{i\theta _j}|f_{j1}_1|f_{j2}_2\mathrm{}|f_{jM}_M.$$
(23)
Note that the norm of each product state in the superposition (23) may be arbitrary. We can conditionally generate the state (23) if we first prepare $`M`$ entangled states ($`k=1,\mathrm{},M`$)

$$|\varphi _k=\underset{j=1}{\overset{d}{}}|f_{jk}|1_{jk},$$
(24)
where $`|1_{jk}`$ denotes a single photon state of the $`(j,k)`$-th auxiliary spatial mode. As discussed above, the states (24) can be prepared with the help of the scheme depicted in Fig. 5. Then, we carry out a joint measurement on all auxiliary photons. The state $`|\psi `$ is obtained if we project the auxiliary modes onto an $`M`$-photon GHZ entangled state:

$$|GHZ_{Md}=\underset{j=1}{\overset{d}{}}e^{i\theta _j}|1_{j1}|1_{j2}\mathrm{}|1_{jM}.$$
(25)
If we denote $`|\mathrm{\Phi }_{Md}=|\varphi _1|\varphi _2\mathrm{}|\varphi _M`$ then we can write

$$|\psi =GHZ_{Md}|\mathrm{\Phi }_{Md}.$$
(26)
With the help of the techniques developed in the framework of the quantum computation with linear optics, the entangled $`M`$-photon GHZ state (25) can be mapped onto a product state of $`M`$ photons which can then be detected by observing an appropriate $`M`$-photon coincidence. The factorization consists of a sequence of the C-SHIFT gates for two qudits. The C-SHIFT gate is defined as follows,

$$|1_{jk}|1_{j^{}k^{}}|1_{jk}|1_{j^{}j,k^{}},$$
(27)
where $`j^{}j`$ should be calculated modulo $`d`$. As shown in Ref. Dusek01  this transformation can be (probabilistically) performed with the use of single photon sources, passive linear optics and photodetectors with single photon sensitivity. If we apply the C-SHIFT gate to the qudits $`1`$ and $`k`$, where $`k=2,\mathrm{},M`$, then the GHZ state (25) is mapped onto product state of $`M`$ photons

$$|GHZ_{Md}\left(\underset{j=1}{\overset{d}{}}e^{i\theta _j}|1_{j1}\right)|1_{d2}\mathrm{}|1_{dM}.$$
(28)
### III.4 State preparation with quantum memory

The above described procedure for the preparation of the generic $`M`$-mode entangled state clearly shows that our approach is indeed general since it allows us, in principle, to generate an arbitrary state. But the success probability of the scheme will be exponentially small in general. The preparation procedure will therefore have to be repeated exponentially many times to produce the desired state. In the rest of this section we shall argue that the number of operations required to produce the desired state can be significantly decreased if a quantum memory is available. The situation is similar to that analyzed in Ref. Cerf02cat  where the operations required to produce “cat states” was drastically decreased by using a recursive procedure that uses a quantum memory.

The advantage of the quantum memory is that it allows one to wait until successive steps in the state generation protocol have succeeded before proceeding with the next steps. For instance in the scheme described in Fig. 5, one can first produce the states $`|\stackrel{~}{f}_j`$ and store them in a memory before proceeding with the production of the entangled state (19). Suppose that the state $`|\stackrel{~}{f}_j`$ can be prepared with the probability $`P_j`$. Without quantum memory the probability of simultaneous preparation of the $`d`$ states $`|\stackrel{~}{f}_j`$ is $`P=_{j=1}^dP_j`$ and the number of required operations thus scales as $`NO1/P`$. If, after a successful preparation, we store each state $`|\stackrel{~}{f}`$ in a memory, we reduce the number of required operations to $`NO_{j=1}^d1/P_j`$.

A more elaborate use of a quantum memory is to build the state using a recursive procedure based on the Schmidt decomposition. The method is best explained on an explicit example. Suppose we would like to prepare a four-mode state $`|\psi _{ABCD}`$. The Schmidt decomposition of this four-mode state with respect to a bi-partite splitting into the $`AB`$ and $`CD`$ modes can be written as follows,

$$|\psi _{ABCD}=\underset{j=1}{\overset{d}{}}|\phi _j_{AB}|\pi _j_{CD},$$
(29)
where $`|\phi _j_{AB}`$ and $`|\pi _j_{CD}`$ form orthogonal bases in some subspaces of the Hilbert space of modes $`AB`$ and $`CD`$, respectively. The number of the terms in the Schmidt decomposition (29) is bounded by $`d(N+1)^2`$ while, in general, $`(N+1)^4`$ terms were necessary in the general procedure of Section IIIC. The decomposition (29) suggests that we could obtain the state $`|\psi _{ABCD}`$ via entanglement swapping if we first prepare two entangled states

$`|\mathrm{\Phi }_{ABX}={\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{d}{}}}|\phi _j_{AB}|1_{jX},`$
$`|\mathrm{\Phi }^{}_{CDY}={\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{d}{}}}|\pi _j_{CD}|1_{jY}.`$ (30)
Now the entangled states $`|\mathrm{\Phi }_{ABX}`$ and $`|\mathrm{\Phi }^{}_{CDY}`$ can be prepared using the general procedure of Sec. IIIC. However, for states of the specific form (30), a simpler procedure can be devised. One first generates $`d`$ states $`|\stackrel{~}{\phi }_j_{AB}`$ where the tilde indicates that $`|\stackrel{~}{\phi }_j`$ is related to $`|\phi _j`$ via relations similar to those described by Eqs. (LABEL:inoutsolution). The state $`|\mathrm{\Phi }_{ABX}`$ is then prepared with the help of the device shown in Fig. 5 where the mode $`B`$ of $`|\stackrel{~}{\phi }_j_{AB}`$ is sent to the $`j`$th input port of the interferometer. The only modification is that we must also erase the spatial information carried by the $`A`$ modes of the states $`|\stackrel{~}{\phi }_j_{AB}`$ and perform the quantum state truncation after the erasing. Briefly, all $`d`$ modes $`A_j`$ are combined on an array of $`d1`$ beam splitters and the detectors monitor the first $`d1`$ output ports. If these detectors do not register any photon, then the erasing procedure succeeded and we apply the quantum scissors to the state in the $`d`$th output port.

Clearly, this recursive procedure can be extended to any number of modes. The resulting scheme resembles a tree structure involving repeated applications of the entangling scheme shown in Fig. 5 and the entanglement swapping that produces an $`2m`$-mode state from two $`m`$-mode states entangled with auxiliary single photons. This scheme relying on quantum memory may possibly lead to a substantial improvement of the generation probability, similarly to the case of the two-mode $`N`$-photon cat states Cerf02cat .

## IV Conclusions

In summary, the scheme proposed in the present paper is universal in that arbitrary multimode entangled states of light can be probabilistically generated. The resources required are passive linear optics, single photon sources, strong coherent states, and detectors with single-photon resolution. This result clearly illustrates the versatility and power of the approach relying only on linear optics and single photons.

It is fair to say, though, that the suggested setup is rather complicated and involves several nontrivial operations such as the quantum non-demolition measurement of a single photon, quantum scissors, and transformations of photonic qudits encoded as a state of a single photon in $`d`$ spatial modes. We have shown that all these operations can be (probabilistically) implemented with the resources that we consider here. The resulting procedure may become very complex for general states. However, it should be emphasized that building a state like (23) must necessarily be complicated because of the large number of parameters \[$`(N+1)^M1`$ complex numbers\] that characterize this state and that must be fixed by the preparation scheme. We have also argued that the use of a quantum memory can decrease the number of operations required to produce the desired state.

We hope that this paper will stimulate the efforts towards experimental demonstrations of the basic building blocks of our scheme, such as the conditional generation of single-mode finite superpositions of Fock states and the preparation of two-mode entangled $`N`$-photon states required for the quantum state truncation.

###### Acknowledgements.

We are grateful to M. Dušek, R. Filip and P. Grangier for stimulating discussions. We acknowledge financial support from the Communauté Française de Belgique under grant ARC 00/05-251, from the IUAP programme of the Belgian government under grant V-18, from the EU under project RESQ (IST-2001-37559) and CHIC (IST-2001-32150). J.F. was also partially supported by the grant LN00A015 of the Czech Ministry of Education.


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# Quantum interference with beamlike type-II spontaneous parametric down-conversion

(February 2003)

## Abstract

We implement experimentally a method to generate photon-number$``$path and polarization entangled photon pairs using “beamlike” type-II spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC), in which the signal-idler photon pairs are emitted as two separate circular beams with small emission angles rather than as two diverging cones.

Since late 1980’s, spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) has served as a good source of correlated or entangled photon pairs for experimental studies of foundations of quantum physics and, more recently, for experiments in quantum information klyshko ; mandel ; shih ; shih2 ; kwiat ; kim ; concent . In type-I SPDC, photons appear as a concentric ring centered at the pump beam due to energy and momentum conservation conditions and the pair photons are selected with a set of small apertures which are positioned at two conjugate regions on the concentric ring mandel ; shih ; note . In type-II SPDC, two such rings appear as the photon pairs are orthogonally polarized (one ring for each polarization). Depending on whether the orthogonally polarized photon pairs propagate collinearly or non-collinearly, one or two apertures are used to select correlated photon pairs, respectively shih2 ; kwiat ; kim ; concent . In any case, only a small fraction of emitted photons can actually be collected and, in general, the bigger the collection aperture, the less the measured correlation. This is due to the fact that, with bigger opening of the collection apertures, there are more probability of detecting un-correlated photons.

Recently, beamlike type-II SPDC was reported in literature takeuchi ; weinfurter1 . In beamlike type-II SPDC, the signal-idler photon pairs are emitted as two separate circular beams rather than as two diverging cones. Each beam has a Gaussian-like intensity distribution with a small divergence angle takeuchi . The immediate advantage of beamlike type-II SPDC over usual type-I and type-II SPDC, in which small apertures are required to define conjugate spatial modes, is that nearly all emitted photons may be collected in principle (without compromising two well-defined spatial modes). As a result, beamlike type-II SPDC exhibits better pair detection efficiency than usual type-I and type-II SPDC takeuchi .

In this paper, we report a quantum interference experiment using beamlike type-II SPDC. Specifically, we report generation of the photon-number$``$path entangled state and the polarization-entangled state with beamlike type-II SPDC in one experimental setup. We also discuss a postselection-free Bell-state generation scheme using beamlike type-II SPDC.

Let us first briefly discuss how beamlike type-II SPDC can be generated. For a $`\beta `$-BaB2O4 (BBO) crystal, collinear degenerate type-II phase matching occurs when the pump beam (assumed 351.1 nm) and the optic axis of the crystal make an angle of $`\theta _p=49.2^{}`$ inside the crystal shih2 . At this angle, the signal photon and the idler photon both are centered at 702.2 nm and the two emission cones or rings, shown as two dashed rings in Fig. 1(a), touch each other at the pump beam. The entangled photon pairs therefore propagate collinearly with the pump beam.

In the case of beamlike type-II SPDC ($`\theta _p48.3^{}`$), the tuning curve for both the e-ray and the o-ray are tangential to the 702.2 nm line as shown in Fig. 1(b). The signal and the idler photons are therefore emitted as two separate “beams”, shown as two signal and idler “blobs” in Fig. 1(a), rather than two cones. Note that the signal-idler emission angles in beamlike type-II SPDC are fixed (in this case $`\pm 3.5^{}`$) for a given pump and the SPDC wavaelengths. This is different from usual non-collinear type-II SPDC in which the signal-idler propagation angle may be easily adjusted by tilting the crystal in the optic axis plane.

The outline of the experimental setup can be seen in Fig. 2. A 1 mm thick type-II BBO crystal (cut at $`\theta _p=49.2^{}`$) was pumped with a 351.1 nm (horizontally polarized) argon ion laser beam. The optic axis of the crystal lied in the horizontal plane so that both the signal and the idler photons propagated parallel to the surface of the optic table. The direction of the optic axis was set as shown in the inset of Fig. 2. The e-ray (o-ray) was therefore horizontally (vertically) polarized. A set of irises placed at $`\pm 3.5^{}`$ about 80 cm from the crystal helps tuning of the crystal angle for beamlike type-II SPDC generation.

For initial alignment of the crystal angle, we placed a multi-mode fiber coupled single-photon counting detector preceeded with a 3 nm bandpass spectral filter immediately after the iris in each beam path. The distance from the crystal to the multi-mode fiber coupler was about 90 cm. Also, a horizontally (vertically) oriented polarizer was inserted in the path of e-ray (o-ray). The BBO crystal was then sligntly tilted in the horizontal direction while observing the single as well as the coincidence counts of the detectors. Only a slight detuning of the crystal angle was necessary to observe beamlike type-II SPDC.

Similarly to the results reported in Ref. takeuchi , the ratio of the coincidence-count rate to the single-count rate was approximately $`11.5\%12\%`$ when the irises were about $`57`$ mm in diameter. When the pump beam was slightly focused with a 1 m focal lens (located about 1 m from the detectors), the ratio rose up to $`15\%`$ for similar size irises monken . Experimentally, this ratio is mostly limited by the detector efficiency (EG&G SPCM, typically 70% at this wavelength), the fiber coupler efficiency (about 65%, measured with a He-Ne laser), the filter transmission (approximately 55% peak transmission), and other small optical losses. The filter transmission, therefore, is the biggest factor for the coincidence/signal ratio and it may be improved by using better designed filters and by using a thicker BBO crystal which reduces the spectral bandwidth of SPDC. Note that, if the mode-matching technique described in Ref. weinfurter2  is used with the beamlike type-II SPDC, a much improved coincidence/single ratio (in turn better pair detection efficiency) may be possible note12 .

The interferometer for beamlike type-II SPDC consists of a half-wave plate and a 50/50 beamsplitter as shown in Fig. 2. The horizontally polarized signal beam passed through a half-wave plate (HWP) and the signal beam and the idler beam were overlapped at the beamsplitter (BS). The delay $`\tau `$ between the two arms was adjusted with a computer controlled trombone prism. At each output ports of the beamsplitter, a polarization analyzer (A1 or A2), a spectral filter (F1 or F2), an iris, and a fiber-coupled single-photon detector were placed. The distance from the crystal to the detector iris was about 190 cm. The coincidence window used in this experiment was approximately 7.3 nsec.

Let us first discuss the two-photon anti-correlation dip experiment with beamlike type-II SPDC. For this measurement, the HWP was set at $`45^{}`$ so that both the signal and the idler photons have the same polarization and the polarization analyzers A1 and A2 were removed from the setup. Since both photons have the same polarization, the two-photon dip effect similar to that of type-I SPDC is expected mandel . There are, however, some subtle differences because beamlike type-II SPDC should show all the characteristics of usual type-II SPDC as far as interference effects are concerned. Therefore, the dip should be triangular in the absence of any spectral filtering and it should occur at $`\tau =DL/2`$ shih2 . Here $`D=1/u_i1/u_s`$, where $`u_s`$ ($`u_i`$) is the group velocity of the signal (idler) photon in the crystal and $`L`$ is the thickness of the crystal. In other words, complete anti-correlation dip or two-photon bunching occurs when the effective time delay through the upper arm of the interferometer is $`DL/2`$ shorter than that of the lower arm.

The experimental data for the anti-correlation dip experiment are shown in Fig. 3. Fig. 3(a) shows the experimental data when the spectral filters F1 and F2 had 3 nm FWHM bandwidth. The Gaussian-like shape of the two-photon dip is due to spectral filtering of SPDC by the 3 nm filters. The familiar triangular two-photon dip for type-II SPDC is evident in Fig. 3(b) when 20 nm FWHM spectral filters were used instead. The triangular shape two-photon dip indicates that the spectrum of type-II SPDC is not affected by spectral filters and apertures used in the experiment shih2 . The two data sets have comparable coincidence count rates due to different sizes of detector irises (3 mm in diameter for Fig. 3(a) and 2 mm for Fig.3(b)), different measurement times (5 sec for Fig. 3(a) and 4 sec for Fig.3(b)), and slightly lower peak transmission of the 20 nm filters than that of 3 nm filters.

The quantum state of the output of the beamsplitter, at the dip, can be written as $`|\psi =(|2,0+|0,2)/\sqrt{2}`$, which is the well-known photon-number$``$path entangled state. So far, such postselection-free photon-number$``$path entangled state was reported using type-I SPDC only in which the spectral bandwidth is very broad. The reduced bandwidth and improved pair detection efficiency of beamlike type-II SPDC maybe useful for certain quantum applications of the photon-number$``$path entangled states.

The generation of the polarization-entangled state may be accomplished by simply setting the HWP angle at $`0^{}`$, i.e., it does not do anything to the polarization state of the signal photon. In this case, the situation is very similar to that of the first Bell-inequality experiment using type-I SPDC mandel ; shih . To observe the usual coincidence dip pattern shih2 , the polarization analyzers A1 and A2 were both set at $`45^{}`$ and the delay between the the two interferometer arms was scanned. This procedure was repeated with two different sets of spectral filters (with 3 nm and with 20 nm). To observe the coincidence peak, the orthogonal analyzer angles $`\text{A1/A2}=45^{}/45^{}`$ were used.

The experimental data for this measurement can be seen in Fig. 4(a) and (b). The data clearly confirm the polarization entangled state $`|\psi =(|H_1|V_2|V_1|H_2)/\sqrt{2}`$ at $`\tau =DL/2`$. The demonstration of polarization correlation measurement ($`\text{A1}=45^{}`$ and A2 rotated) at $`\tau =DL/2`$ can be seen in Fig. 4(c). Note that if $`\tau DL/2`$, partially-entangled partially-mixed state may be generated.

Beamlike type-II SPDC may also be used prepare the two-photon state somewhat similar to that of collinear type-II SPDC. An example can be seen in Fig. 5(a). Here, a polarizing beamsplitter is used instead of a beamsplitter. The resulting state after PBS, therefore, is similar to the state prepared by collinear type-II SPDC shih2  or two collinear type-I SPDC’s kim ; kim2 . This type of a single-mode two-photon state can be described as a three-state quantum system (qutrit) moscow  and the possibility of quantum information processing using such ternary quantum states are currently being investigated by many researchers.

In Fig. 5, we show a scheme to generate postselection-free polarization entangled states using beamlike type-II SPDC note2 . The first and the second crystal generates beamlike type-II SPDC photon pairs in the polarization state $`|H_1|V_2`$ and $`|H_2|V_1`$, respectively. After the photons pass through suitable compensators similar to the one used in Ref. bitton , the two amplitudes may become distinguishable only by their polarization properties. All four two-photon polarization Bell-states therefore may be prepared in this way. This setup, therefore, may be useful for loophole-free Bell-inequality tests if combined with other collection efficiency enhancing techniques monken ; weinfurter2 .

Note that, unlike the schemes using two orthogonally oriented type-I crystals kwiat ; kim ; kim2 , non-maximally entangled states cannot be directly generated using beamlike type-II SPDC. In the two-crystal scheme shown in Fig. 5(b), the pump beam has to be horizontally polarized and the amplitudes $`|H_1|V_2`$ and $`|H_2|V_1`$ are generated in each crystal due to the different optical axes orientations, both of which lie in the horizontal plane. Therefore, the weighting factors for each amplitudes cannot be easily varied by simply changing the polarization orientation of the pump beam. Partial reflection mirrors inserted in the beam paths, however, may allow indirect generation of non-maximally entangled states.

For ultrafast pumping, beamlike type-II SPDC suffers the same visibility loss as with usual ultrafast type-II SPDC schemes. In ultrafast type-II SPDC, the signal and the idler photons have different spectra and the pump pulse acts as a clock which in principle could be used to tell where the photon pair was created inside the crysal pulsedspdctheory . These extra distinguishing information are the source of poor visibility in usual type-II SPDC with ultrafast pump pulsedspdcexp . Since the distinguishing information still exists in the two-photon state of beamlike type-II SPDC, the same poor visibility is expected as well. It may, however, be possible to use the entanglement concentration (or extraction) scheme demonstrated in Ref. concent  with the two-crystal scheme shown in Fig. 5(b). If the two modes in the two crystal scheme shown in Fig. 5(b) are made to overlap at an additional polarizing beamsplitter, the spectral or temporal distinguishing information may be effectively “decoupled” from the polarization information of the photon pair. In this case, regardless of the pump bandwidth, a high-quality post-selection free Bell-state may be generated using beamlike type-II SPDC.

In summary, we reported a quantum interference experiment using beamlike type-II SPDC, in which the signal and the idler photons are emitted as two separate circular beams with small emission angles rather than as two diverging cones. We also discussed methods to prepare postselection-free Bell-states using beamlike type-II SPDC. Since beamlike type-II SPDC exhibits better collection and pair detection efficiencies due to its emission property, the entangled state generated using beamlike type-II SPDC is well-suited for loophole-free Bell-inequality experiments (if combined with other detection efficiency enhancing techniques) and for many quantum information experiments involving entangled photon pairs.

This research was supported in part by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, NSA, and the LDRD program of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, managed for the U.S. DOE by UT-Battelle, LLC, under contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725.