A direct interferometric test of the nonlinear phase shift gate

Abstract: We propose a direct interferometric test of the Non-Linear Phase Shift Gate (NLPSG), an essential piece of a Knill Laflamme Milburn Contolled-NOT (KLM CNOT) gate. We develop our analysis for the both the case of the original, bulk optical KLM NLPSG and for the scalable integrated nano-photonic NLPSG based on Micro-Ring Resonators (MRRs) that we have proposed very recently. Specifically, we consider the interference between the target photon mode of the NLPSG along one arm of a Mach Zehnder Interferometer (MZI) and a mode subject to an adjustable linear phase along the other arm. Analysis of triple-photon coincidences between the two modes at the output of the MZI and the success ancillary mode of the NLPSG provides a signature of the operation of the NLPSG. We examine the triple coincidence results for experimentally realistic cases of click/no-click detection with sub-unity detection efficiencies. Further we compare the case for which the MZI input modes are seeded with weak Coherent States (w-CS) and to that for which the input states are those resulting from colinear Spontaneous Parametric Down Conversion (cl-SPDC). In particular, we show that, though more difficult to prepare, cl-SPDC states offer clear advantages for performing the test, especially in the case of relatively low photon detector efficiency.