Deterministic generation of a two-dimensional cluster state.

Measurement-based quantum computation offers exponential computational speed-up through simple measurements on a large entangled cluster state. We propose and demonstrate a scalable scheme for the generation of photonic cluster states suitable for universal measurement-based quantum computation. We exploit temporal multiplexing of squeezed light modes, delay loops, and beam-splitter transformations to deterministically generate a cylindrical cluster state with a two-dimensional (2D) topological structure as required for universal quantum information processing. The generated state consists of more than 30,000 entangled modes arranged in a cylindrical lattice with 24 modes on the circumference, defining the input register, and a length of 1250 modes, defining the computation depth. Our demonstrated source of two-dimensional cluster states can be combined with quantum error correction to enable fault-tolerant quantum computation.