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Single photonic qutrit in a collective Rydberg polariton

Yuechun Jiao1,2, Oliver D. W. Hughes1, Max Z. Festenstein1, Zhengyang Bai3,4,*, Jianming Zhao2, Weibin Li5, Kevin J. Weatherill1, and C. Stuart Adams1,†

  • 1Joint Quantum Centre (Durham-Newcastle), Department of Physics, Durham University, Durham DH1 3LE, United Kingdom
  • 2State Key Laboratory of Quantum Optics Technologies and Devices, Institute of Laser Spectroscopy, Shanxi University, Taiyuan 030006, China
  • 3National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures and School of Physics, Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China
  • 4State Key Laboratory of Precision Spectroscopy, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China
  • 5School of Physics and Astronomy and Centre for the Mathematics and Theoretical Physics of Quantum Non-equilibrium Systems, University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2RD, United Kingdom

  • *Contact author: zhybai@nju.edu.cn
  • †Contact author: c.s.adams@durham.ac.uk
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Phys. Rev. Research 7, 033267 – Published 19 September, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/3xnw-cpj2

Abstract

Qutrit with highly efficient algorithms and security is imperative in quantum information processing. Here, we demonstrate for the first time the coherent creation, control, and readout of a single photonic qutrit in a cold Rydberg ensemble. In each measurement, an optical photon is stored as a Rydberg polariton through electromagnetically induced transparency. Employing two microwave fields, the polariton is driven into an arbitrary superposition of three collective states, each encoded in a Rydberg state. The collective state is mapped into a photonic time-bin qutrit with the microwave field and read out sequentially. The complete sequence, including preparation, control, and readout, is less than 1.8µs, which mitigates decoherence significantly. We measure the coherence of the qutrit with nondestructive Ramsey interferometry, which is preferable for quantum information processing, and find good quantitative agreement with the theoretical model. The ability to write, process, and read out the single photonic qutrit on microsecond timescales with microwave-coupled Rydberg states demonstrates the coherent connectivity among the high Hilbert space of the qutrit. Our study is an important step in exploring qutrit-based quantum information processes and quantum simulation of topological physics with microwave-coupled Rydberg atom ensembles.

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Phys. Rev. Research 7, 033267– Published 19 September, 2025
  • Received 30 August 2024
  • Revised 4 December 2024
  • Accepted 29 August 2025
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