Boson sampling is considered as a strong candidate to demonstrate ‘quantum computational supremacy’ over classical computers. However, previous proof-of-principle experiments suffered from small photon number and low sampling rates owing to the inefficiencies of the single-photon sources and multiport optical interferometers. Here, we develop two central components for high-performance boson sampling: robust multiphoton interferometers with 99% transmission rate and actively demultiplexed single-photon sources based on a quantum dot–micropillar with simultaneously high efficiency, purity and indistinguishability. We implement and validate three-, four- and five-photon boson sampling, and achieve sampling rates of 4.96 kHz, 151 Hz and 4 Hz, respectively, which are over 24,000 times faster than previous experiments. Our architecture can be scaled up for a larger number of photons and with higher sampling rates to compete with classical computers, and might provide experimental evidence against the extended Church–Turing thesis.

中文翻译：

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高效多光子玻色子采样

玻色子采样被认为是证明经典计算机上“量子计算至上”的强有力的候选者。但是，由于单光子源和多端口光学干涉仪的低效率，以前的原理验证实验遭受的光子数量少且采样率低。在这里，我们为高性能玻色子采样开发了两个主要组件：具有99％传输率的坚固多光子干涉仪，以及基于量子点-微柱的主动多路分解的单光子源，同时具有高效率，纯度和可分辨性。我们实现并验证了三光子，四光子和五光子玻色子采样，并分别实现了4.96 kHz，151 Hz和4 Hz的采样率，这比以前的实验快了24,000倍。