Linear optical fan-out gates using fewer ancillary single photons with enhanced success probability
Phys. Rev. Applied 26, 024023 – Published 11 August, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/cs4d-lpfj
Abstract
Photonic quantum gates are fundamental building blocks for a wide range of optical quantum information processing tasks. We propose an efficient linear-optical scheme for implementing a postselected three-qubit fan-out gate (also known as a controlled-not-not gate) using only two ancillary single photons and linear optical elements. The scheme can be generalized to an -qubit fan-out gate, requiring ancillary single photons and polarizing beam splitters (PBSs), with a success probability of . Compared with the standard gate decomposition approach, which requires ancillary single photons, PBSs, and yields a success probability of . Our scheme significantly reduces the resource overhead and improves the success probability. We further evaluate the gate performance and demonstrate improved robustness compared with gate decomposition-based methods.