Abstract
Photon loss is the biggest problem for scalable photonic quantum information processing. This issue can be tackled through quantum error correction, provided that the overall photon loss is below a threshold of one-third. However, all reported on-demand and indistinguishable single-photon sources still fall short of this threshold. Here, by using tailor shaped laser pulse excitation on a high-quantum efficiency single quantum dot deterministically coupled to a tunable open microcavity, we simultaneously demonstrate a high-performance source with a low multi-photon error of g(2)(0) = 0.0205(6), photon indistinguishability of 0.9856(13) and overall system efficiency of 0.712(18). This source for the first time reaches the efficiency threshold for scalable photonic quantum computing. With this source, we further demonstrate 1.89(14) dB intensity squeezing, and consecutive 40-photon events with a count rate of 1.67 mHz.
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All data are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request. Source Data are provided with this paper.
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Acknowledgements
Our work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant nos. 12012422 and 62474168), the National Key R&D Program of China (grant no. 2019YFA0308700), the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Anhui Initiative in Quantum Information Technologies (grant no. AHY060000), the Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality (grant no. 2019SHZDZX01), the Innovation Program for Quantum Science and Technology (grant no. 2021ZD0301400, 2021ZD0300204), Chinese Academy of Sciences Project for Young Scientists in Basic Research (grant no. YSBR-112) and the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (grant no. 2021M703102).
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C.-Y.L. and J.-W.P. conceived and designed the experiments. R.-Z.L., J.-Y.Z., Z.-X.G, Q.-H.Z. and Y.-H.H. grew and fabricated the quantum dot samples. M.-C.X. and L.-J.W. fabricated the cavity mirror. G.-Y.Z., H.-L.L., M.-C.C., H.W. and Y.-M.H. contributed materials and analysis tools. X.D. and Y.-P.G. performed the optical experiments. X.D., Y.-P.G. and G.-Y.Z. analysed the experimental data. X.D. and C.-Y.L. wrote the paper with input from all authors. C.-Y.L. and J.-W.P. supervised the project.
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Ding, X., Guo, YP., Xu, MC. et al. High-efficiency single-photon source above the loss-tolerant threshold for efficient linear optical quantum computing. Nat. Photon. 19, 387–391 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-025-01639-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-025-01639-8
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