Quantum information protocols are based on a variety of entanglement modes such as Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR), Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) and other cluster states. For on-demand preparation, these states can be realized with squeezed light sources in optics, but such experiments lack versatility as they require a variety of optical circuits to individually realize diverse states of entanglement. In a recent study, Shuntaro Takeda and colleagues at the interdisciplinary departments of Applied Physics and Engineering in Japan addressed the shortcoming by developing an on-demand entanglement synthesizer. Using the experimental setup, the physicists programmably generated entangled states from a single squeezed source of light.

In the work, they used a loop-based circuit dynamically controlled at nanosecond time scales to process optical pulses in the time domain. The scientists generated and verified five different small-scale entangled states and a large-cluster containing more than 1000 modes in a single setup without changing the optical circuit. The circuit developed by Takeda et al. could store and release one part of the generated entangled states to function as a quantum memory. The experimental report published on Science Advances, will open a new way to build general entanglement synthesizers on-demand using a scalable quantum processor.

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