Boosting the generation rate of squeezed single-photon states by generalized photon subtraction

In optical quantum information processing with continuous variables, optical non-Gaussian quantum states are essential for universal and fault-tolerant quantum computation. Experimentally, their most typical generation method is photon subtraction (PS), where single-photon detection by an on/off detector probabilistically heralds the generation of squeezed single-photon states. In PS, however, trying to avoid unwanted multiphoton detection inevitably limits the generation rate, hindering the application of squeezed single-photon states. Here, we theoretically show that generalized photon subtraction (GPS), a simple extension of PS, can improve the generation rate while maintaining the quality of the generated states. Furthermore, we experimentally demonstrate the generation rate improvement for 2-dB- and 4-dB-squeezed single-photon states compared to PS, by more than one order of magnitude, particularly for the case of 2 dB. Our results will accelerate the application of squeezed single-photon states to more advanced quantum information protocols.