Deterministic generation of a two-dimensional cluster state

Generating large-scale cluster states The development of a practical quantum computer requires universality, scalability, and fault tolerance. Although much progress is being made in circuit platforms in which arrays of qubits are addressed and manipulated individually, scale-up of such systems is experimentally challenging. Asavanant et al. and Larsen et al. explore an alternative route: measurement-based quantum computation, which is a platform based on the generation of large-scale cluster states. As these are optically prepared and easier to handle (one simply performs local measurements on each individual component of the cluster state), such a platform is readily scalable and fault tolerant. The topology of the cluster state ensures that the approach meets the requirements for quantum computation. Science, this issue p. 373, p. 369 Two-dimensional cluster states are generated, a necessary requirement for universal quantum computing. Measurement-based quantum computation offers exponential computational speed-up through simple measurements on a large entangled cluster state. We propose and demonstrate a scalable scheme for the generation of photonic cluster states suitable for universal measurement-based quantum computation. We exploit temporal multiplexing of squeezed light modes, delay loops, and beam-splitter transformations to deterministically generate a cylindrical cluster state with a two-dimensional (2D) topological structure as required for universal quantum information processing. The generated state consists of more than 30,000 entangled modes arranged in a cylindrical lattice with 24 modes on the circumference, defining the input register, and a length of 1250 modes, defining the computation depth. Our demonstrated source of two-dimensional cluster states can be combined with quantum error correction to enable fault-tolerant quantum computation.