Description
Photonic loss is one of the key obstacles for optical quantum information science on the path towards quantum advantage in communication, computation, and measurement. Perfect quantum amplification of unknown quantum states is prohibited by the no-cloning theorem, leaving the community to search for practical methods to overcome the effects of loss on optical quantum states. Probabilistic quantum amplification offers a practical pathway forward, enabling the implementation of optical circuits that achieve quantum state amplification with a non-unit probability of success, thereby avoiding violation of the no-cloning theorem. Among these, protocols such as those based on the quantum scissors scheme operate in a heralded manner, providing an independent signal upon successful amplification.
To date, heralded amplification demonstrations have been limited to photonic states carrying no more than one photon in an optical mode. While such encoding is of high interest for quantum communication and repeated applications, modern tasks in quantum sensing and computing frequently require more complex multi-photon states as resources. Here, we experimentally demonstrate distortion-free amplification of an optical state carrying up to two photons in a single mode [1]. Our demonstration relies on a low-loss and high-accuracy implementation of a generalised n-photon quantum scissors gate based on an optical Quantum Fourier Transform circuit. We verify its coherent operation and achieve an over hundred-fold intensity gain. Our approach is scalable to larger photon numbers and enables the quantum amplification of complex optical resources required for quantum advantage demonstrations and applications in scalable quantum technologies.
[1] L. Villegas-Aguilar et al. A heralded quantum amplifier of multi-photon states, ArXiv:2505.13992
| I am the presenting author | Yes |
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