Bichromatic Quantum Teleportation of Weak Coherent Polarization States on a Metropolitan Fiber
Zofia A. Borowska, Shane Andrewski, Giorgio De Pascalis, Olivia Brasher, Mael Flament, Alexander N. Craddock, Niccolò Bigagli, Ronny Döring, Michaela Ritter, Ralf-Peter Braun, Klaus Jons, Marc Geitz, Oliver Holschke, Matheus Sena, Mehdi Namazi
quant-phSubmitted Feb 18, 2026• Announced Feb 19, 2026• 2 citations• Revised Sep 22, 2026 (v2)
As quantum technologies mature, telecommunication operators have a clear opportunity to unlock and scale new services by providing the connectivity layer that links quantum computers, sensors, clocks, and other quantum devices. Realizing this opportunity requires demonstrating quantum networking protocols, including quantum teleportation, under real-world conditions on existing telecom infrastructure. In this work, we demonstrate quantum teleportation over Deutsche Telekom's metropolitan fiber testbed in Berlin using commercial components deployed at the telecom datacenter. A local Bell-state measurement between 795 nm photons from a weak coherent source and from a bichromatic warm-atom entangled photon source enables conditional state transfer onto an O-band photon, which is transmitted through a 30-km field-deployed fiber loop under real-world environmental conditions. The teleported state is reconstructed after propagation via state tomography, achieving an average teleportation fidelity of 90\% on the deployed link. System performance is evaluated in both the absence and the presence of co-propagating C-band classical traffic within the same fiber, demonstrating compatibility with wavelength-division multiplexed telecom infrastructure carrying live data channels.
As quantum technologies mature, telecommunication operators have a clear opportunity to unlock and scale new services by providing the connectivity layer that links quantum computers, sensors, clocks, and other quantum devices. Realizing this opportunity requires demonstrating quantum networking protocols, including quantum teleportation, under real-world conditions on existing telecom infrastructure. In this work, we demonstrate quantum teleportation over Deutsche Telekom's metropolitan fiber testbed in Berlin using commercial components deployed at the telecom datacenter. A local Bell-state measurement between 795 nm photons from a weak coherent source and from a bichromatic warm-atom entangled photon source enables conditional state transfer onto an O-band photon, which is transmitted through a 30-km field-deployed fiber loop under real-world environmental conditions. The teleported state is reconstructed after propagation via state tomography, achieving an average teleportation fidelity of 90% on the deployed link. System performance is evaluated in both the absence and the presence of co-propagating C-band classical traffic within the same fiber, demonstrating compatibility with wavelength-division multiplexed telecom infrastructure carrying live data channels.
The ability for quantum and conventional networks to operate in the same optical fibers would aid the deployment of quantum network technology on a large scale. Quantum teleportation is a fundamental operation in quantum networking, but has yet to be demonstrated in fibers populated with high-power conventional optical signals. Here we report, to the best of our knowledge, the first demonstration of quantum teleportation over fibers carrying conventional telecommunications traffic. Quantum state transfer is achieved over a 30.2-km fiber carrying 400-Gbps C-band classical traffic with a Bell state measurement performed at the fiber’s midpoint. To protect quantum fidelity from spontaneous Raman scattering noise, we use optimal O-band quantum channels, narrow spectro-temporal filtering, and multi-photon coincidence detection. Fidelity is shown to be well maintained with an elevated C-band launch power of 18.7 dBm for the single-channel 400-Gbps signal, which we project could support multiple classical channels totaling many terabits/s aggregate data rates. These results show the feasibility of advanced quantum and classical network applications operating within a unified fiber infrastructure.
When a photon and one member of an entangled photon pair are jointly projected onto a Bell-state measurement (BSM), the quantum state of the photon can be transferred to the distant partner of the pair without physically transmitting this information carrier. In real-world deployment, however, teleportation performance is fundamentally bottlenecked by quantum channel impairments, such as loss, noise, and fluctuations, which induce severe decoherence and degrade fidelity. This vulnerability is further exacerbated in scenarios with intense classical data traffic or background light. Realizing scalable quantum networks, therefore, hinges on developing advanced channel architectures capable of supporting both high-fidelity quantum operations and high-capacity classical communications within a shared infrastructure. Towards this end, hollow core fibre (HCF) offers a promising quantum channel resource by combining free-space-like weak light-matter interaction with the stability of fibre-based systems. Here, utilizing a field-deployed metropolitan HCF network spanning three spatially separated nodes in Chengdu, we achieve quantum teleportation with an intermediate BSM under co-propagating classical traffic. Crucially, the HCF links preserve the long-term indistinguishability of photonic qubits without active stabilization, and exhibit a Raman noise approximately three orders of magnitude lower than that of standard solid-core counterparts. This noise suppression enables robust quantum teleportation even alongside classical launch powers up to 160 mW. Our findings establish a classical-data-compatible framework for quantum networking over deployed fibre infrastructure and offer a wavelength-agnostic, plug-and-play, and free-running pathway toward the quantum internet.
Network operators hold a significant asset in their widespread optical fiber networks and as quantum technologies advance, these operators will be ideally positioned to offer new streams of services in the context of the Quantum Internet. However, establishing a functional Quantum Internet requires diverse technological advancements, particularly in the efficient distribution of entanglement over optical fibers. Entanglement serves as the cornerstone for quantum protocols and technologies such as quantum repeaters, teleportation, sensing, and time synchronization. Nonetheless, as photons propagate through fiber, they encounter various impairments that can degrade entanglement quality. Specifically, polarization-entangled photons suffer from polarization drifts, which exhibit stochastic behavior and can reduce fidelity. In this paper, we examine the prospects of entanglement distribution for the Quantum Internet, presenting experimental campaigns that highlight both the challenges and solutions. We demonstrate the inherent instability of photon fidelity in field-deployed fibers and show how compensation schemes can effectively enhance entanglement transmission in urban fiber networks. Our findings include results from a four-day entanglement distribution experiment conducted over Deutsche Telekom's optical fiber network in Berlin, achieving an average Bell parameter and fidelity of 2.52 and 99.6%, respectively.
Quantum teleportation is essential for many quantum information technologies, including long-distance quantum networks.Using fiber-coupled devices, including state-of-the-art low-noise superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors and off-the-shelf optics, we achieve conditional quantum teleportation of time-bin qubits at the telecommunication wavelength of 1536.5 nm.We measure teleportation fidelities of ≥ 90% that are consistent with an analytical model of our system, which includes realistic imperfections.To demonstrate the compatibility of our setup with deployed quantum networks, we teleport qubits over 22 km of single-mode fiber while transmitting qubits over an additional 22 km of fiber.Our systems, which are compatible with emerging solid-state quantum devices, provide a realistic foundation for a high-fidelity quantum Internet with practical devices.
Abstract We report on the implementation of quantum entanglement distribution and quantum state teleportation over a 14.4 km urban dark-fiber link, which is partially underground, partially overhead, and patched in several stations. We characterize the link for its use as a quantum channel and realize its active polarization stabilization. Using a type-II cavity-enhanced SPDC photon pair source, a 40 Ca + single-ion quantum memory, and quantum frequency conversion to the telecom C-band, we demonstrate photon-photon entanglement, ion-photon entanglement, and teleportation of a qubit state from the ion onto a remote telecom photon, all realized over the urban fiber link.
Entanglement distribution is the overarching purpose of quantum networks. While communication over long distances can use deployed fiber infrastructure, it requires photons in the telecom band. However, advanced quantum network nodes do not operate at such wavelengths. Here we overcome this limitation with two tailor-made low-noise quantum-frequency converters to distribute entanglement between a single atom and a resonant photon over 14km line-of-sight via 24km of a deployed commercial fiber. The photon at wavelength 780nm is first entangled with the atom, then converted to the telecom S-band, and finally back-converted after propagation through the fiber. This link enables a photon transfer efficiency of 1.7% while affecting the atom-photon entanglement fidelity by less than 1%. This brings integration of atomic quantum nodes with existing long-distance fiber networks into reach, enabling novel applications in quantum information processing.