Quantum superposition and entanglement of mesoscopic plasmons

Sylvain Fasel, Matthaeus Halder, Nicolas Gisin, Hugo Zbinden

Published 2005-12-02Version 1

Quantum superpositions and entanglement are at the heart of the quantum information science. There have been only a few investigations of these phenomena at the mesoscopic level, despite the fact that these systems are promising for quantum state storage and processing. Here we present two novel experiments with surface plasmons propagating on cm-long metallic stripe waveguides. We demonstrate that two plasmons can be entangled at remote places. In addition, we create a single plasmon in a temporal superposition state: it exists in a superposition of two widely separated moments. These quantum states, created using photons at telecom wavelength, are collectively held by a mesoscopic number of electrons coding a single quantum bit of information; They are shown to be very robust against decoherence.