Experimental demonstration of efficient high-dimensional quantum gates with orbital angular momentum

Abstract Quantum gates are essential for the realization of quantum computer and have been implemented in various types of two-level systems. However, high-dimensional quantum gates are rarely investigated both theoretically and experimentally even that high-dimensional quantum systems exhibit remarkable advantages over two-level systems for some quantum information and quantum computing tasks. Here we experimentally demonstrate the four-dimensional X gate and its unique higher orders with the average conversion efficiency 93%. All these gates are based on orbital-angular-momentum degree of freedom (DoF) of single photons. Besides, a set of controlled quantum gates is implemented by use of polarization DoF. Our work is an important step toward the goal of achieving arbitrary high-dimensional quantum circuit and paves a way for the implementation of high-dimensional quantum communication and computation.