Event

Committee:

Professor Saikat Guha (Chair)

Professor Tom Murphy

Professor Edo Yaks

 

Date/time: November 14, 2025 from 11:30-1:00PM

 

Location: AVW 2328

 

Title: Experimental Realization of Reconfigurable Temporal Mode Optical Unitary

 

Abstract: The ability to implement a high fidelity unitary operation onto optical modes of light is essential in applications including continuous and discrete variable quantum computing, state generation for quantum-enhanced sensing, entanglement distribution for networking, and optical communication over classical-quantum channels. Established architectures for the construction of path-mode unitary operations are well known, but the operation on M modes requires order M^2 components, limiting the size of realizable systems to several dozen modes. Temporal modes, where the encoded classical or quantum information is embedded into discrete segments of a set duration t, are more naturally suited to many optical quantum systems such as repeated generation of single photons from a single emitter or quantum-limited laser communication systems. A set of two novel architectures for realizing a multi-mode temporal unitary are the Green-Clements and Green-SCF architectures. Both systems can realize a generalized multi-mode unitary with a single stage of components consisting of linear optic components and fast electro-optic modulators. This research extends previous experimental work in realizing a static Green-Hadamard unitary using a fiber system into both a fiber based Green-Clements and Green-SCF build as well as a free space optical build to demonstrate realization of GHZ state generation, boosted Bell measurements, and uncompromised super-additive capacity. Realization of such an experimental platform opens the door to near-term realization of essential operations in the realms of quantum sensing, computing, networking, and communications.