Shor's Quantum Factoring Algorithm on a Photonic Chip

摘要

The realization of a quantum computer presents an exciting prospect of modern science. The processing of information encoded in quantum systems admitting quantum superposition and entanglement enables exponentially greater power for particular tasks. Originally conceived in the context of simulating complex quantum systems, it was the development of Shor's quantum factoring algorithm (1) that showed the capability of factoring the product of two large prime numbers exponentially faster than any known conventional method (2), which has ignited efforts to fabricate such a device.