Atom-mediated photonic quantum computation

Entangled multi-photon graph states are a crucial resource in photonic quantum computation and communication, yet the lack of photon-photon interactions makes their construction especially challenging. Typically, these graph states are produced through probabilistic single-photon sources and linear-optics entangling operations that require indistinguishable photons. The resulting inefficiency of these methods necessitates a large overhead in the number of sources and operations, creating a major bottleneck in the photonic approach. Harnessing single-atom-based photonic operations enables deterministic generation of photonic graph states, while also lifting the requirement for photon indistinguishability.