The optical frequency comb as a one-way quantum computer

In the one-way model of quantum computing, quantum algorithms are implemented using only measurements on an entangled initial state. Much of the hard work is done upfront when creating this universal resource, known as a cluster state, on which the measurements are made. Here we detail a new proposal for a scalable method of creating cluster states using only a single multimode optical parametric oscillator (OPO). The method generates a continuous-variable cluster state that is universal for quantum computation and encoded in the quadratures of the optical frequency comb of the OPO. This work expands on the presentation in Menicucci, Flammia and Pfister (2008 Phys. Rev. Lett. 101 , 130501).