Development of integrated optical components for a quantum teleportation experiment

Quantum teleportation is a quantum communication protocol that can perform the reliable transfer of quantum information using a classical communication channel. An integrated optics circuit for quantum teleportation is advantageous in terms of footprint and components stability. Consequently, an on-chip quantum teleportation experiment will give a clear proof of the potentiality of such protocol. This thesis deals with the development of integrated optics components to manipulate polarisation entangled photons at the telecom wavelength, in order to build the sender unit in a quantum teleportation protocol. Using the femtosecond laser micromachining technique, a Polarising Beam Splitter (PBS) with extinction ratio up to 29 dB, and proper behaviour in a 15 nm wavelength range was developed. A polarisation insensitive beam splitter was also developed. The polarisation insensitive beam splitters were based on a new two-dimensional geometry, and they demonstrated an excellent insensitivity to any arbitrary light polarisation. A combination of the above components, integrated on the same glass chip, constituted the core of one of the two nodes in the teleportation protocol. In addition, a path-encoded state preparation chip was developed using a thermally reconfigurable Mach-Zehnder interferometer. Simulations of the single-photons experiment were performed by considering the effect of components non-idealities on the quantum teleportation fidelity.