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Physics Seminar

Photonic quantum computational advantage

Speaker: Chao-Yang Lu (University of Science and Technology of China)
Date: Wednesday 16 March 2022
Time: 13:00
Venue: Zoom and N/1.32

The main challenge for scaling up photonic quantum technologies is the lack of perfect quantum light sources. We have pushed the parametric down-conversion to its physical limit and produce two-photon source with simultaneously a collection efficiency of 97% and an indistinguishability of 96% between independent photons. Using a single quantum dot in microcavities, we have produced on-demand single photons with high purity (>99%), near-unity indistinguishability, and high extraction efficiency—all combined in a single device compatibly and simultaneously. Based on the high-performance quantum light sources, we have implemented boson sampling—which is an intermediate model of quantum computing, a strong candidate for demonstrating quantum computational advantage and refuting Extended Church Turing Thesis—with up to 113 photon clicks after a 144-mode interferometer. The photonic quantum computer, Jiuzhang, yields an output state space dimension of 10^43 and a sampling rate that is 10^24 faster using the state-of-the-art simulation strategy on supercomputers.

Short bio:Chao-Yang Lu obtained his PhD in Physics from the University of Cambridge in 2011. He is currently a Professor of Physics at USTC. His research interest includes quantum computation, quantum photonics, multi-particle entanglement, quantum teleportation, superconducting circuits, and atomic arrays. His work on quantum teleportation was selected as by Physics World as “Breakthrough of the Year 2015”. He has been awarded as Fellow of Churchill College (2011), Hong Kong Qiu Shi Outstanding Young Scholars (2014), National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars (2015), Nature’s top ten “science star of China” (2016), OSA Fellow (2017), Fresnel Prize from the European Physical Society (2017), AAAS Newcomb Cleveland Prize (2018), Huangkun Prize from Chinese Physical Society (2019), Nishina Asian Award (2019), Xplorer Prize (2019), IUPAP-ICO Young Scientist Prize in Optics (2019), OSA Adolph Lomb Medal (2020), and Rolf Landauer and Charles H. Bennett Award in Quantum Computing (2021). He is the Chair of Quantum 2020 and has served as an editorial board member in international journals such as Quantum Science and Technology, PhotoniX, Advanced Photonics, Advanced Quantum Technology, Science Bulletin, and iScience.