2021/03/04 by Shreya P. Kumar, Kumar, Shreya P., Leonhard Neuhaus +12 · 1 citation
Computer Science · Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomical interferometer #Computer science #Electronic engineering #Engineering #FOS: Physical sciences #Interferometry #Linear scale #Neural Networks and Reservoir Computing #Optical Network Technologies #Optics #Optics (physics.optics) #Photonic and Optical Devices #Photonics #Physics #Port (circuit theory) #Power (physics) #Power consumption #Quantum Physics (quant-ph) #Unitary state #physics.optics #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2103.03183
13 pages, 9 figures. Comments welcome
arxiv created 2021/03/04 · openalex publication_date 2021/03/04 · arxiv updated 2021/03/05 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Linear optics is a promising route to building quantum technologies that operate at room temperature and can be manufactured scalably on integrated photonic platforms. However, scaling up linear optics requires high-performance operation amid inevitable manufacturing imperfections. We present techniques for enhancing the performance of linear optical interferometers by tailoring their port allocation and compilation to the on-chip imperfections, which can be determined beforehand by suitable calibration procedures that we introduce. As representative examples, we demonstrate dramatic reductions in the average power consumption of a given interferometer or in the range of its power consumption values across all possible unitary transformations implemented on it. Furthermore, we demonstrate the efficacy of these techniques at improving the fidelities of the desired transformations in the presence of fabrication defects. By improving the performance of linear optical interferometers in relevant metrics by several orders of magnitude, these tools bring optical technologies closer to demonstrating true quantum advantage.