We propose and experimentally demonstrate a scheme for the implementation of a maximally entangling quantum controlled-$Z$ gate between two weakly interacting systems. We conditionally enhance the interqubit coupling by quantum interference. Both before and after the interqubit interaction, one of the qubits is coherently coupled to an auxiliary quantum system, and finally it is projected back onto qubit subspace. We experimentally verify the practical feasibility of this technique by using a linear optical setup with weak interferometric coupling between single-photon qubits. Our procedure is universally applicable to a wide range of physical platforms including hybrid systems such as atomic clouds or optomechanical oscillators coupled to light.

• Received 7 April 2015

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.92.022341