Weak nonlinearities: a new route to optical quantum computation

Quantum information processing (QIP) offers the promise of being able to do things that we cannot do with conventional technology. Here we present a new route for distributed optical QIP, based on generalized quantum non-demolition measurements, providing a unified approach for quantum communication and computing. Interactions between photons are generated using weak nonlinearities and intense laser fields—the use of such fields provides for robust distribution of quantum information. Our approach only requires a practical set of resources, and it uses these very efficiently. Thus it promises to be extremely useful for the first quantum technologies, based on scarce resources. Furthermore, in the longer term this approach provides both options and scalability for efficient many-qubit QIP.