News about the project

PANDA: Photon-Atom Non-linearities and Deterministic Applications via arrays

The quantum properties of photons — allowing low-loss long-distance transmission, multiplexing large amounts of quantum information into a single channel, and operations in standard, room-temperature settings — yield great promise for scalable quantum computing (QC). However, low interaction is their great weakness for quantum information processing (QIP), as quantum circuits require photon-photon interactions. To date, two-photon interactions have only been facilitated either probabilistically with low efficiency or between individual photons via intermediaries with errors much too large for practical QIP.

PANDA has an ambitious core goal of building the foundation for a photonic quantum computer: an array of neutral strontium atoms with subwavelength spacing carefully designed to harness collective effects to implement lossless, deterministic photon-photon interactions. Combined with novel high-efficiency single-photon handling, we will construct a powerful platform for strong, efficient, controllable non-linear operations with many QIP applications. These include deterministic two-photon quantum gates with unprecedented efficiency and repeat rates. We will especially apply our platform to continuous-variable (CV) QIP, particularly Measurement-Based QC, which fully utilizes quantum light field advantages, but has been hindered by the lack of deterministic non-Gaussian photon state generation and is not addressed in the Quantum Flagship. Using our platform for deterministic photon subtraction will address this and, with a CV theory roadmap we will develop, pave the way for photonic QC. Our two-photon gates will also be applicable to Discrete-Variable QIP, placing PANDA in a complementary position to many possible portfolio projects.

PANDA incorporates world-class experimentalists and theorists from leading research groups and SMEs with the expertise required to develop core technology that will both yield marketable IPR and fulfill our ambitious objectives.

Project Information

• Grant agreement ID: 101115420
• DOI: 10.3030/101115420
• Start date: 1 November 2023
• End date: 31 October 2027
• Funded under: The European Innovation Council (EIC)
• Total cost: € 3 984 437,50
• Coordinated by: Sorbonne Université, France

Publications

• Mann, C. R., Andreoli, F., Protsenko, V., Lenarčič, Z., & Chang, D. (2024). Selective Radiance in Super-Wavelength Atomic Arrays. arXiv preprint arXiv:2402.06439.

Events

Incoming

Collaborators

• Nicolas Treps – Sorbonne Université, coordinator
• Valentina Parigi – Sorbonne Université
• Alexandra Sheremet – Pasqal
• Valérian Thiel – Pasqal
• Loïc Henriet – Pasqal
• Darrick Chang – ICFO
• Antoine Browaeys – Institut d’Optique Théorique et Appliquée
• Igor Ferrier-Barbut – Institut d’Optique Théorique et Appliquée
• Nicolai Walter – Pixel Photonics GmbH
• Wladick Hartmann – Pixel Photonics GmbH

The consortium is collaborating with other recipients of the 2022 EIC Pathfinder Challenge: Alternative approaches to Quantum Information Processing, Communication, and Sensing. The goal is to work together towards developing novel technologies and study their potential industrialization, accelerating their emergence. The sisters projects are the following:

• Veriqub: Efficient verification of quantum computing architectures with bosons

Quantum devices offer great promise for computation, cryptography, communication, and sensing. Alternative approaches to quantum information processing in which bosonic modes are the carriers of information have attracted increasing attention, because they offer a hardware-efficient path to fault-tolerance and scalability thanks to their inherently large Hilbert space. However, this poses the problem of providing rigorous guarantees of the correct functioning of these promising bosonic architectures, a task known as quantum verification. To date, this verification is performed by general-purpose tomographic techniques, which rapidly become intractable for large quantum systems. Thus, other methods are needed as quantum devices are scaled up to achieve real-world advantages.

“Veriqub will introduce a new approach to the verification of quantum computing architectures with bosons based on continuous-variable measurements. Veriqub’s technological toolbox will comprise two main elements:

1. We will experimentally demonstrate the verification of multi-mode bosonic systems for optical and superconducting architectures well beyond the state-of-the-art, and provide the first demonstration of verified quantum computational speedup.
2. We will develop a theory framework that defines the fundamental advantages of our contribution, putting special emphasis on identifying and verifying resourceful bosonic quantum devices.”

The Veriqub consortium comprises world leading scientific partners who are ideally positioned to achieve the ambitious vision of this project and build a state-of-the-art verification technology toolbox, enabling bosonic quantum computing architectures to scale up, and positioning Europe as a leader in this domain.

Web / LinkedIn

• Heisingberg: Spatial Quantum Optical Annealer for Ising Hamiltonians

HEISINGBERG aims to develop a novel information processing platform, based on the XY spin Hamiltonian, as a scalable energy efficient alternative to current state of the art quantum simulators, considering experimental, theoretical, algorithmic and control aspects. The project is designed to fully develop :

1. the core optoelectronic system hardware,
2. a novel approach to encode spins and control their mutual couplings,
3. custom-tailored algorithms for the optimisation of the annealing process as well as the optimal mapping of real-life problems,
4. a generalisation of the existing theoretical model to account for the quantum operation regime,
5. advances in experimental realisation and measurements for the quantum operation, and finally,
6. the development of dedicated control and interfacing software for the robust deployment of the machine.

• ARTEMIS: moleculAR maTerials for on-chip intEgrated quantuM lIght sourceS

ARTEMIS  proposes  fundamental  research  toward  the  development  of integrable  single  and  entangled  photon  sources  based  on  metallorganic molecular  compounds. The  project  is  motivated  by  the  urgent  need  for  novel quantum  sources  with  unprecedented  versatility,  flexibility  and  performance. This  goal  will  be  pursued  by  resorting  to  molecular  materials,  based  on transition metal and/ or lanthanide ions with organic moieties, characterized by tunable  linear  downshifted  emission  as  well  as  non-linear  optical  properties enabling  on-demand  single  photons  and  entangled  photon  pairs/triplets generation. Such flexible and processable metallorganic materials will replace traditional quantum photon sources based on bulk inorganic crystals allowing for  the  direct  integration  of  wavelength-  tunable  quantum  sources  on  current devices.  The  molecular  quantum  sources  will  be  combined  with  suitable designed  plasmonic  supernanostructured  cavities  to  achieve  the  highest optical  enhancement.  The  proposed  progress  will  be  gained  through  cutting- edge synthesis techniques and advanced characterization methods integrated with  nano-photonics  engineering  strategies.  The  devices  and  methods developed  in  this  project  will  lead  to  photon  sources  with  competitive performance  in  terms  of  coherence,  efficiency,  scalability,  and  cost.  The achievement  of  the  high  risk/high  gain  project  goal  requires  continuous feedback  among  molecular  chemistry,  linear  and  nonlinear  optical characterizations, and quantum measurements. It is important to underline the high interdisciplinary feature of the proposed project thanks to the involvement of  high-qualified  scientific  staff  working  in  fields  ranging  from  chemistry  to quantum  optics  through  physics,  plasmonics  and  imaging.  It  is  generally expected  that  the  strong  interdisciplinary  character  of  the  staff  involved  can make  a  significant  contribution  to  development  of  innovative  methods  and techniques  as  well  as  make  more  simple  collaboration  with  other  projects  in the Quantum Portfolio.

• Q-One: Quantum Optical Networks based on Exciton-polaritons

Q-ONE aims at exploring a novel approach for sensing and generating quantum states of light. The project idea places itself at the frontier between quantum physics and applied artificial intelligence. The consortium targets the realization of a novel device based on strongly interacting photons (exciton-polaritons) that, using principles of neuromorphic computing, is able to recognize, characterize, and generate a variety of quantum states. We propose to exploit the properties of a quantum neural networks (QNN) of polariton nonlinear nodes, using state-of-the-art interactions, to dentify and generate quantum states: this strongly innovative idea relies on the resonant injection of states as excitations of the QNN, which physically realizes–rather than simulates–a massively parallel computing task.