On-Chip Generation and Collectively Coherent Control of the Superposition of the Whole Family of Dicke States

Integrated quantum photonics has recently emerged as a powerful platform for generating, manipulating, and detecting entangled photons. Multipartite entangled states lie at the heart of the quantum physics and are the key enabling resources for scalable quantum information processing. Dicke state is an important class of genuinely entangled state, which has been systematically studied in the light-matter interactions, quantum state engineering, and quantum metrology. Here, by using a silicon photonic chip, we report the generation and collectively coherent control of the entire family of four-photon Dicke states, i.e., with arbitrary excitations. We generate four entangled photons from two microresonators and coherently control them in a linear-optic quantum circuit, in which the nonlinear and linear processing are achieved in a chipscale device. The generated photons are in telecom band, which lays the groundwork for large-scale photonic quantum technologies for multiparty networking and metrology.

Automated summary

Integrated quantum photonics is a rapidly developing field that allows for the generation, manipulation, and detection of entangled photons. Multipartite entangled states, such as the Dicke states, are essential for scalable quantum information processing. In this study, we demonstrate the generation and coherent control of four-photon Dicke states using a silicon photonic chip. The generated photons are in the telecom band, making them suitable for large-scale photonic quantum technologies for multiparty networking and metrology.