An Approach to Realize a Quantum Hadamard Gate

through Optical Implementation

Shihan Sajeed1,2 A. Ahmed, S. M. Ullah, Z. H. Mozumder

Department of Electronics & Communication Engineering1 Applied Physics, Electronics & Communication Engineering2
Northern University Bangladesh University of Dhaka
Dhaka, Bangladesh Ramna, Dhaka
shihan.sajeed@gmail.com Bangladesh

Abstract— Transverse modes of optical fields are proposed to be computational power than the combined computational power
used as qubits for the implementation of quantum Hadamard of all the human beings that have ever lived on Earth. Also it
gate. Mach-Zehnder Interferometer (MZI), phase shifter, y- would take a quantum computer around 20 minutes to factor a
junction beam splitters and other optical devices are utilized to 1000 digit number, where a Classical computer would take
realize a quantum Hadamard gate. The possibility of this around 10 million billion billion years [1]. Such a promise has
encoding scheme was designed, simulated and verified through led the whole world to start research into the subject.
rigorous numerical analyses using the Beam propagation
method. The proposed gate has the potential of being more
compact and easily realizable than some other optical II. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
implementation proposals since it is based on planar light wave
circuit technology and can be constructed very easily by using a A. Hadamard gate
Mach-Zehnder Interferometer. The Results proved that the The purpose of the Hadamard gates is to create
design is able to perform the required Hadamard transformation superposition states. The Hadamard gate H acts on the
and the conclusion was reached that the model was a successful
computational basis states in the following way [1-4]:
implementation of a quantum Hadamard gate.
| 0²+ |1²
Keywords-; Waveguides; transverse modes; Quantum H | 0² = (2.1)
Hadamard gate; Qubits; Mach-Zehnder Interferometer; planar 2
light wave technology;
| 0²− |1²
H |1² = (2.2)
I. INTRODUCTION 2
In the information age, where Laptops, Palmtops, RSA When the Hadamard gate is applied on each of the N qubit
encryption and Internets are the antiquated technologies of of the state |00 . . . 0‫ ۄ‬it creates all possible 2N states [1, 4-6].
tomorrow, quantum information theory aims to understand the As an example, let’s consider a quantum register with two
old rules of quantum mechanics from the new perspective of qubits where the two qubits are assumed to be initialized to
information theory. Not only do the laws of Quantum state |0‫ۄ‬, i.e. the state of the system/register is considered to be
Mechanics allow building smaller computer, but they also let |00‫ۄ‬. If the Hadamard gate operates on the register, the resultant
its computational power increase exponentially. Such a state of the register would be [4-6]:
computer based on the fundamental rules of quantum
mechanics is known as the “Quantum Computer” which is H | 0² ⊗ H | 0²
expected to have no wires, no plugs and no transistors. = ( H | 0²) ⊗ ( H | 0² )
Information in it is expected to be stored and processed through
isolated two state quantum systems, namely, “Quantum bits” or § | 0²+ | 1² · § | 0²+ | 1² ·
=¨ ¸⊗¨ ¸ (2.3)
“Qubits”. © 2 ¹ © 2 ¹
In Classical Physics a particle can exist only at a single § | 00²− | 01²− | 10²+ | 11² ·
point in space at a particular instant in time, keeping in line =¨ ¸
© 2 ¹
with common sense and everyday life. However, in Quantum
Mechanics such restrictions are not present. Hence, whereas a Hence, all the possible four states are generated and the
bit in a classical computer is either a 1 or a 0, a Qubit in a register is in a superposition state of all the four qubits.
quantum computer would be 1 and 0 at the same time! Hence Without making a measurement, if another unitary operation is
two Qubits can store four bits, three Qubits can store eight bits performed then that is performed for all the four states. For
and a collection of N bits can store 2N bits of information. example if a NOT operation is now performed, it will result in
the alteration of all the possible four states in the probability
It would be sufficient to say that a Quantum Computer space [1, 7-8]. This is where the enormous computing power of
having the size of today’s desktop computer will have more quantum computation lies.

This work was supported in part by the “Department of Applied Physics,

Electronics and Communication Engineering”, “University of Dhaka” and
partly by the “Department of ECE”, “Northern University Bangladesh”.

978-1-4244-6875-1/10/$26.00 ©2010 IEEE

 The Matrix representation of a Hadamard gate is [1, 4-6]:

1 ª1 1 º
H= « » (2.4)
2 ¬1 −1¼
In nature there exist devices that can actually perform
Hadamard transformation on their own. A simple example
would be an optical beam splitter that creates a superposition
state of photon path. The operation of a beam splitter can be
represented quantum mechanically using the matrix [2]:

1 ª1 j º
R= « » (2.5)
2 ¬ j 1¼
This matrix closely resembles the Hadamard matrix H Figure 1. The designed Substrate and cladding layer
except for a phase shift which can easily be compensated by
using additional phase shifter. Hence, in optical quantum
computation the beam splitter is the best choice for creating the C. Calculation of the channel width
necessary superposition state and thus performing the operation To design a dual mode waveguide that supports only the
of the Hadamard gate. In this work a Mach-Zehnder fundamental and first order mode, the width of the guide must
interferometer has been used for the same purpose. be carefully chosen. In this case, the design approach described
in [10] has been followed.
III. DESIGN METHODOLGY 1) The V-parameter is defined by:
A. Modes of an electromagnetic wave as qubits:
V = kw n 2f − ns2 (3.1)
Qubits can be encoded by the different modes of waves
travelling through a waveguide. In this encoding scheme, the
For the present case,
zero logical state |0‫ ۄ‬can be encoded by one normal mode (such
as TE0 mode) and the logical one state |1‫ ۄ‬can be encoded by ns = 2.145966
the other orthogonal normal mode (e.g. TE1 mode) [8-9].
If qubits are encoded in this manner, its state space will
n f = 2.148510
consist of all superposition of the basic normal modes TE0 and na = 1
TE1. It is not necessary that only TE mode should be used to
represent qubits. The TM modes can also be used for the same λ = 1.3μ m
purpose. When a dual mode waveguide is used so that the
probability of existing of other higher order modes are very 2) The asymmetric measure is defined as:
little , the system can easily represent a two level quantum
system. ns2 − nc2
a= = 329.992677 (3.2)
Using this representation technique with the help of dual- n 2f − ns2
mode waveguide and other optical devices a fully optical
method can be realized in order to perform quantum 3) For a WG that should support only 0th & 1st order
computation. mode the required condition is:

B. Design of a Dual mode waveguide V1 < V < V2 (3.3)

In order to prepare a substrate using the simulator Here,
“OPTIBPM” the following parameters were chosen:
• Substrate width = 100 μm (x direction) Vm = mπ + tan −1 a (3.4)
• Substrate height = 10 μm (y direction) Thus,
• Substrate length = 28000 μm(z direction)
• Crystal cut = Z cut V1 < V < V2
• Propagation direction = Towards z direction Ÿ π + tan −1 a < kw n2f − ns2 < 2.π tan −1 a (3.5)
• Substrate material = Diffused LiNbO3
• Cladding layer height = 2μm Ÿ 9.2 < w < 15.4
• Cladding Material = air (Dielectric) The width of the waveguide was chosen as, w = 12 μm &
• Cladding Refractive Index = 1.00 the waveguide thus designed was a dual mode waveguide.
 4) Design of a quantum Hadamard gate IV. SIMULATION AND RESULT
The Mach Zehnder interferometer is represented by the The layout of the Mach-Zehnder interferometer simulated
following unitary matrix [9]: using OPTIBPM is shown in figure 2.

ª cos φ jsin φ º
U =«
2 2»
(3.6)
« φ φ »
¬« 2 ¼»
jsin cos
2
Here  is the phase difference between the two arms. The
relation between input and output of the MZI can be written as:

ª cos φ jsin φ º ª| 0² º
ª | ψ1 ² º « 2 2»
«| ψ ² » = « » «¬|1² »¼
(3.7)
¬ 2 ¼ out « jsin φ cos φ
» in
¬ 2 2¼
If  = 0, then all inputs are unchanged at the gate output
and the MZI operate as an identity gate that is, it just passes its
input to its output without any modification or change. On the
other hand, if  is adjusted to the value of , the modulator acts
as a quantum NOT gate. In this case a TE0 mode at the input is Figure 2. Layout of the Mach-Zehnder interferometer
transformed into TE1 at the output and vice versa. However, if
the Mach-Zehnder interferometer is designed in such a way
that  = /2, superposition states are generated. In this case, the A. RESULT For input |0‫ۄ‬
output is related to the input as: The result obtained by applying a TE0 mode at the input is
shown in figure 3. From figure 3 (a) it was seen that the input
1 TE0 mode was converted into a superposition of the TE0 and
| ψ1 ² = (| 0² + j |1² ) (3.8) TE1 mode. The same result was seen from the 2-D view of the
2 optical field as shown in figure 3(b). Finally the transverse field
1 profile of the input was shown in figure 3(c) and from the
| ψ2 ² = ( j | 0² + |1² ) (3.9) output transverse field profile shown in figure 3(d) the
2 existence of superposition state was verified again.
Thus, the device can be approximated as a Hadamard gate
by choosing,  = /2. The relation between electrode voltage B. RESULT for input |1‫ۄ‬
and the phase shift is defined as [11-12]:
The result obtained by applying a TE1 mode at the input is
λd shown in figure 4. From figure 4 (a) it was seen that the input
V= Δφ (3.10) TE1 mode was converted into a superposition of the TE0 and
πΓn03 r33l TE1 mode. The same result was seen from the 2-D view of the
optical field as shown in figure 4 (b). Finally the transverse
In this work, field profile of the input was shown in figure 4(c) and from the
Distance between the electrodes, d = 6 μ m output transverse field profile shown in figure 4 (d) the
existence of superposition state was verified again.
Refractive index, n0 = 2.22 Hence analyzing the results shown in figure 3-4 it was
Electro-optic coefficient, r33 = 30.8 pm / V verified that the quantum Hadamard gate designed using the
electro-optic approach was capable of providing the necessary
Length of the electrodes, l = 8000 μ m superposition states and as a result it could be used to function
as a quantum Hadamard gate
Operating wavelength, λ = 1.3μ m
Reduction factor, Γ = 0.3 V. SUGGESTIONS FOR FUTURE WORK
π Recently, there has been great interest in using optical
Required phase shift, Δφ = devices as ultrafast logic devices for signal processing,
2 communication and computations [13-15]. Some studies about
Inserting these values into equation (3.10), the half wave the optical waveguide structures and devices made from linear
voltage was found to be: and nonlinear materials have been proposed in [16-21]. There
has also been great interest in the use of Mach-Zehnder
V = 4.954896 (3.11) waveguide interferometer for the use of modulation, switching
During simulation, V = 5 volts was selected to be used. and logic gates, etc [22-27]. Most of them are operated by the
principles of electro-optic effect.
 (a)
(c)
Figure 3. Results obtained when the input to the quantum Hadamard gate was state |0‫ۄ‬. (a) The 3-D view of the propagation of optical field. (b) 2-D view of the
same field. (c) Transverse field profile at the input (d) Transverse field profile at the output.
In most of these cases [13-27] transverse modes of
electromagnetic waves can provide additional functionality
such as the Hadamard operation. It would be really beneficial if
all the Pauli gates (X, Y and Z gates) could have been
implemented as every unitary operation can be represented as a
combination of the Pauli matrix and if the Pauli gates can be
implemented it would be possible to construct every other
quantum gates from them. The Toffoli gate is a universal
reversible logic gate through which any reversible quantum
logic circuit can be implemented. It would be a great step
towards the realization of quantum computation if this gate
could be implemented. Focus should also be turned towards the
implementation of CNOT, SWAP, Phase shift and other
Controlled gates.
VI. CONCLUSION
In this work transverse modes of optical fields are
considered to be used as qubits for the implementation of
Hadamard gate. A Mach Zehnder Interferometer was designed
and the electro-optic effect was utilized to provide the
necessary ‘Hadamard’ transformation on the transverse modes.
The functioning of the designed gate as a Hadamard gate was
verified and conclusions were drawn by performing rigorous
numerical analyses using the beam propagation method. The
conclusion was that the Mach Zehnder Interferometer designed
functioned remarkably as a quantum “Hadamard” gate.
(b)
(d)
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