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arXiv:2603.23718 · Physical Review A

Rethinking Quantum Networking with Advances in Fiber Technology

Prateek Mantri, Michael S. Bullock, Aditya Tripathi, Robert Kwolek, Rajveer Nehra, Don Towsley

quant-phSubmitted Mar 24, 2026• Announced Mar 26, 2026• 0 citations
v1 · Mar 24, 2026v2 · Sep 7, 2026
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Recent comparisons of quantum repeater protocols have highlighted the strong near-term potential of multiplexed two-way architectures for long-distance quantum communication. At the same time, advances in hollow-core fiber (HCF) technology motivate a re-examination of the physical transmission medium as an architectural lever in quantum network design. In this work, we compare emerging anti-resonant HCFs against conventional silica single-mode fibers (SMFs) in multiplexed two-way quantum repeater networks. We evaluate their performance under both telecom and memory-native transmission, accounting for frequency-conversion overheads, coupling efficiencies, memory decoherence, and operational noise. We find that HCF significantly outperforms SMF across a wide range of regimes. With memory-native transmission, HCF yields up to an order of magnitude improvement in secret-key rate per channel use under realistic conversion efficiencies. Even at telecom wavelengths, HCF enables larger optimal repeater spacing, improving rate--cost tradeoffs and reducing repeater requirements. We further quantify the role of memory quality, hardware efficiency, detector and conversion losses, and two-qubit gate noise in shaping these gains. These results show that recent advances in HCF materially expand the design space of practical terrestrial quantum repeater networks.

Journal reference
Phys. Rev. A 114, 042603 (2026)
DOI
10.1103/lf9y-3h7h
Comments
22 pages, 11 figures

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Recent comparisons of quantum repeater protocols have highlighted the strong near-term potential of multiplexed two-way architectures for long-distance quantum communication. At the same time, advances in hollow-core fiber (HCF) technology motivate a re-examination of the physical transmission medium as an architectural lever in quantum network design. In this work, we compare emerging anti-resonant HCFs against conventional silica single-mode fibers (SMFs) in multiplexed two-way quantum repeater networks. We evaluate their performance under both telecom and memory-native transmission, accounting for frequency-conversion overheads, coupling efficiencies, memory decoherence, and operational noise.
We find that HCF significantly outperforms SMF across a wide range of regimes. With memory-native transmission, HCF yields up to an order of magnitude improvement in secret-key rate per channel use under realistic conversion efficiencies. Even at telecom wavelengths, HCF enables larger optimal repeater spacing, improving rate--cost tradeoffs and reducing repeater requirements. We further quantify the role of memory quality, hardware efficiency, detector and conversion losses, and two-qubit gate noise in shaping these gains. These results show that recent advances in HCF materially expand the design space of practical terrestrial quantum repeater networks.
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Coexistence of classical and quantum light in optical fiber is a key requirement for scalable quantum networks. However, it is fundamentally limited by nonlinear crosstalk from intense classical signals. Hollow-core fiber (HCF), with its intrinsically low optical nonlinearity, offers a promising solution. Here, we experimentally demonstrate the coexistence of polarization-entangled photons with dense wavelength-division multiplexed (DWDM) classical signals with a total launch power of 11.2 dBm, and perform a direct comparison between equal-length single-mode fiber (SMF) and photonic-bandgap-based HCF deployed in a campus network. We observe that HCF suppresses background noise by approximately two orders of magnitude compared to SMF, while preserving high-fidelity entanglement distribution. Our results provide clear experimental evidence of the advantage of HCF and establish its potential as a transmission medium.
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State of the art classical and quantum communications rely on standard optical fibers with solid cores to transmit light over long distances. However, recent advances have led to the emergence of antiresonant hollow-core optical fibers (AR-HCFs), which, due to the novel fiber geometry, show remarkable optical guiding properties, which are not as limited by the material properties as solid-core fibers. In this paper, we explore the transmission of entangled photons through a novel 7.7 km AR-HCF in a laboratory environment at 1550 nm, presenting the first successful demonstration of entanglement distribution via a long AR-HCF. In addition to showing these novel fibers are compatible with long distance quantum communication, we highlight the low latency and low chromatic dispersion intrinsic to AR-HCF, which can increase the secure key rate in time-bin-based quantum key distribution protocols.
Quantum key distribution (QKD) is approaching industrial maturity, but its integration with high-power classical signals in shared optical fiber is hindered by noise from nonlinear effects like spontaneous Raman scattering and four-wave mixing. Hollow-core fiber (HCF) offers a promising solution by inherently suppressing these nonlinearities. However, a comprehensive noise analysis for pure HCF or standard single-mode-fiber–HCF hybrid links, validated experimentally under realistic high-power conditions, remains unavailable. This work bridges that gap through a thorough theoretical and experimental investigation of an HCF-featured coexistence system. We demonstrate a silicon-photonics-based QKD system operating with an optical transport network (OTN). The system achieves multiplexed launch powers of 20 dBm for counter-propagation and 14 dBm for co-propagation, meeting the highest requirements of modern OTNs. Over a 10 km HCF link, it simultaneously supports 12×583 Gbps classical channels across the C-band and achieves secure key rates of 5.7 kbps (counter-propagation) and 2.5 kbps (co-propagation) over a 1550 nm quantum channel. Our results provide critical benchmarks and a practical framework for deploying HCF-based quantum-classical networks, paving the way for future inherently secure telecommunications.
Quantum-dot single-photon sources are promising for quantum communication. Yet, the most advanced devices operate near 900 nm, where standard single-mode fibers experience significant losses. We address this by employing a hollow-core fiber engineered for low-loss transmission at quantum-dot wavelengths, with measured loss of 0.65 dB/km and potentially as low as 0.13 dB/km near 934 nm. The same fiber also supports strong classical signals at 1550 nm without introducing detectable Raman noise. Using this platform, we transmit all four BB84 polarization states from an InAs quantum dot over 340 m with a quantum bit error rate of 0.1% while preserving single-photon purity and indistinguishability even in the presence of a strong classical signal. These results establish an integrated transmission platform that combines a custom-engineered anti-resonant hollow-core fiber with co-existence of classical and quantum channels, enabling practical quantum-dot-based quantum key distribution beyond the conventional telecom bands.