Engineering integrated photonics for heralded quantum gates

Abstract: Scaling up linear-optics quantum computing will require multi-photon gates which are compact, phase-stable, exhibit excellent quantum interference, and have success heralded by the detection of ancillary photons. We investigate implementation of the optimal known gate design which meets these requirements: the Knill controlled-Z gate, implemented in integrated laser-written waveguide arrays. We show that device performance is more sensitive to the small deviations in the coupler reflectivity, arising due to the tolerance values of the fabrication method, than phase variations in the circuit. The mode fidelity was also shown to be less sensitive to reflectivity and phase errors than process fidelity. Our best device achieves a fidelity of 0.931+/-0.001 with the ideal 4x4 unitary circuit and a process fidelity of 0.680+/-0.005 with the ideal computational-basis process.