Abstract At present, the main components of quantum communication channels are optical fibers and free space. However, whether it is a fiber channel or a free-space channel, the channel in which it propagates is affected by noise, resulting in loss or absorption of photons. Experimental studies have shown that the quantum key can basically meet the requirements of the local area network, and the safety distance is about 100km. However, if you want to achieve longer distance distribution, you can’t do without quantum repeaters. The quantum repeater can divide the long-distance communication distance into several segments, and then perform quantum key distribution in several segments respectively; then establish a longer-distance EPR pair between adjacent nodes, and establish an EPR pair to utilize entanglement switching and Entanglement purification technology; finally repeat the above steps, and finally achieve long-distance information transmission. The development of quantum repeaters can solve the communication problems facing the world and promote the replacement of global communication methods.
Abstract At present, the main components of quantum communication channels are optical fibers and free space. However, whether it is a fiber channel or a free-space channel, the channel in which it propagates is affected by noise, resulting in loss or absorption of photons. Experimental studies have shown that the quantum key can basically meet the requirements of the local area network, and the safety distance is about 100km. However, if you want to achieve longer distance distribution, you can’t do without quantum repeaters. The quantum repeater can divide the long-distance communication distance into several segments, and then perform quantum key distribution in several segments respectively; then establish a longer-distance EPR pair between adjacent nodes, and establish an EPR pair to utilize entanglement switching and Entanglement purification technology; finally repeat the above steps, and finally achieve long-distance information transmission. The development of quantum repeaters can solve the communication problems facing the world and promote the replacement of global communication methods.
Quantum communication is a groundbreaking technology that is driving the future of information transmission and communication technologies to a new paradigm. It relies on quantum entanglement to facilitate the transmission of quantum states between parties. Quantum repeaters are crucial for facilitating long-distance quantum communication. These quantum devices act as intermediaries between adjacent communication channel segments within a fragmented quantum network, allowing for entanglement swapping between the channel segments. This entanglement swapping process establishes entanglement links between the endpoints of adjacent segments, gradually creating a continuous entanglement connection over the entire length of the transmission channel. The established quantum link can be utilized for secure and efficient quantum communication between distant sender and receiver nodes. This study focuses on quantum entanglement purification, a protocol aimed at maintaining high fidelity entangled states above the operational threshold of the communication channel. This study investigates the optimal stage for executing the purification protocol and applies optimization schemes to evaluate various purification protocols. We use IBM Qiskit for circuit implementation and simulation. The results offer valuable insights into future approaches to implementing practical quantum repeaters and shed light on existing and anticipated challenges.
Entanglement distribution is a fundamental building block of quantum communication networks, enabling the secure and reliable exchange of quantum information over long distances. Unlike classical communication, quantum networks exploit the unique properties of quantum entanglement to support applications such as quantum key distribution, quantum teleportation, distributed quantum computing, and networked quantum sensing. Although significant progress has been made in recent years, the efficient generation, transmission, and preservation of entangled states remain major research challenges due to photon loss, decoherence, and limitations in current communication infrastructure.This review provides a comprehensive overview of entanglement distribution in quantum communication networks, focusing on the technologies that enable practical implementation and the latest experimental developments. It discusses key approaches for generating and distributing entangled photons through optical fibers, free-space links, and satellite-based communication, together with supporting technologies such as quantum repeaters, quantum memories, and photonic devices. The review also examines recent experimental demonstrations that have advanced long-distance quantum communication while highlighting the technical barriers that must be overcome for large-scale deployment. Finally, emerging applications and future research directions are presented, including the development of scalable quantum networks, the quantum internet, and secure global communication systems. This review aims to provide researchers and students with a clear understanding of the current state of entanglement distribution and its growing role in next-generation quantum communication technologies.
Long-distance quantum communication faces significant challenges due to photon loss and operational errors in fiber optic channels. Quantum repeaters (QRs) offer a promising solution by extending the communication range and enabling secure exchange of quantum information over continental distances. This article provides an overview of the three generations of QRs, comparing their technological requirements and challenges. We introduce the basic techniques, such as entanglement swapping, distillation, and error correction, and discuss their relevance to each generation of QRs. In addition, we present a future direction that integrates superconducting qubits with optical fibers, enabled by recent advances in microwave-optical transduction. This new hybrid architecture offers promising prospects for scalable and efficient quantum networks. It is also applicable in quantum key distribution protocols, such as E91.
Quantum information technology has been developing rapidly in last two decades. Very recently, quite a few optical quantum key distribution networks have been reported, enabling preliminary practical applications in secure information transfer. Meanwhile, a number of significant progresses based on quantum network have also been made in the research of linear optical quantum computing, simulation and metrology. However, on the way towards large-scale optical quantum network serious problems occur. On the one hand, the distance of fiber-based quantum communication is limited, due to intrinsic fiber loss and decreasing of entanglement quality caused by the noisy environment. On the other hand, the probabilistic feature of single and entangled photon sources would also cause an exponentially increasing overhead for large-scale quantum network. To solve the above problems, quantum repeaters and/or transmission of optical quantum bits over free space channel can be efficiently exploited for future wide-area realization of quantum communication. In addition, memory built-in quantum repeaters would also enable scalable linear optical quantum computing, simulation and high precision measurement. In this talk I will present some recent experiments from our group, including eight-photon entanglement, topological quantum error-correction, quantum repeater and efficient and long-lived quantum memory, and entanglement distribution and quantum teleportation over 100km-scale free-space quantum channels. These experiments show the promising future possibility towards scalable quantum network with photons and atoms.
Abstract The distribution of quantum entanglement is essential for quantum communication. Contrary to classical communication, the signal in quantum communication is impossible to copy due to the basic principles of quantum mechanics, i.e. , quantum state collapse and no-cloning theorem. However, the communication range is limited by inevitable photon loss. To counteract this issue, one can insert several repeater stations between two remote end nodes to divide the full distance into several shorter segments and successively operate entanglement swapping between adjacent repeater stations to enable long-distance quantum communication. Up to now, one can classify quantum repeaters (QRs) into three generations based on the methods of reducing errors resulted from photon loss and imperfect operations. In this paper, we will briefly review advances for each generation of QRs and discuss the advantages and challenges of each generation. Moreover, we also discuss some efficient proposals of building blocks to overcome the bottlenecks for QRs.
Academia, governments, and industry around the world are on a quest to build long-distance quantum communication networks for a future quantum internet. Using air and fiber channels, quantum communication quickly faced the daunting challenge of exponential photon loss with distance. Quantum repeaters were invented to solve the loss problem by probabilistically establishing entanglement over short distances and using quantum memories to synchronize the teleportation of such entanglement to long distances. However, due to imperfections and complexities of quantum memories, ground-based proof-of-concept repeater demonstrations have yet been restricted to metropolitan-scale distances. In contrast, direct photon transmission from satellites through empty space faces almost no exponential absorption loss and only quadratic beam divergence loss. A single satellite successfully distributed entanglement over more than 1,200 km. It is becoming increasingly clear that quantum communication over large intercontinental distances (e.g., 4,000–20,000 km) will likely employ a satellite-based architecture. This could involve quantum memories and repeater protocols in satellites, or memory-less satellite-chains through which photons are simply reflected, or some combination thereof. Rapid advancements in the space launch and classical satellite communications industry provide a strong tailwind for satellite quantum communication, promising economical and easier deployment of quantum communication satellites.