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Science Advances

Reconfigurable entanglement distribution network based on pump management of a spontaneous four-wave mixing source

Jingyuan Liu, Dongning Liu, Zhanping Jin, Zhihao Lin, Hao Li, Lixing You, Xue Feng, Fang Liu, Kaiyu Cui, Wei Zhang, Yidong Huang

Published Dec 13, 2024• 21 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Leveraging the unique properties of quantum entanglement, quantum entanglement distribution networks support multiple quantum information applications and are essential to the development of quantum networks. However, practical implementation poses fundamental challenges to network scalability and flexibility. Here, we propose a reconfigurable entanglement distribution network scheme based on tunable multipump excitation of a spontaneous four-wave mixing (SFWM) source and a time-sharing method. We characterize the two-photon correlation under different pump conditions to demonstrate the effect of pump degenerate and pump nondegenerate SFWM processes on the two-photon correlation and its tunability. Then, as a benchmark application, a 10-user fully connected quantum key distribution network is established in a time-sharing way with triple pump lights. Our results provide a promising networking scheme for large-scale entanglement distribution networks owing to its scalability, functionality, and reconfigurability.

DOI
10.1126/sciadv.ado9822

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Leveraging the unique properties of quantum entanglement, quantum entanglement distribution networks support multiple quantum information applications and are essential to the development of quantum networks. However, practical implementation poses fundamental challenges to network scalability and flexibility. Here, we propose a reconfigurable entanglement distribution network scheme based on tunable multipump excitation of a spontaneous four-wave mixing (SFWM) source and a time-sharing method. We characterize the two-photon correlation under different pump conditions to demonstrate the effect of pump degenerate and pump nondegenerate SFWM processes on the two-photon correlation and its tunability. Then, as a benchmark application, a 10-user fully connected quantum key distribution network is established in a time-sharing way with triple pump lights. Our results provide a promising networking scheme for large-scale entanglement distribution networks owing to its scalability, functionality, and reconfigurability.
Leveraging the unique properties of quantum entanglement, quantum entanglement distribution networks support multiple quantum information applications and are essential to the development of quantum networks. However, its practical implementation poses significant challenges to network scalability and flexibility. In this work, we propose a novel reconfigurable entanglement distribution network based on tunable multi-pump excitation of a spontaneous four-wave mixing (SFWM) source and a time-sharing method. We characterize the two-photon correlation under different pump conditions to demonstrate the effect of pump degenerate and pump non-degenerate SFWM processes on the two-photon correlation, and its tunability. Then as a benchmark application, a 10-user fully-connected quantum key distribution (QKD) network is established in a time-sharing way with triple pump lights. Each user receives one frequency channel thus it shows a linear scaling between the number of frequency channels and the user number in despite of the network topology. Our results thus provide a promising networking scheme for large-scale entanglement distribution networks owing to its scalability, functionality, and reconfigurability.
Abstract As a critical infrastructure for quantum internet, quantum entanglement distribution networks enable diverse quantum information applications. Among the existing architectures, the pump-management entanglement distribution network scheme exhibits remarkable scalability, functionality, and reconfigurability. However, its performance is hampered by the noise photons from concurrent spontaneous four-wave mixing (SFWM) processes and the unbalanced secure key rates (SKRs) across the network. Here, we propose a polarization manipulation scheme for pump-management entanglement distribution networks, enabling active control over the polarization states of the pump lasers and the generated single photons to optimize network performance. By utilizing orthogonally polarized pumps and polarization selection, the noise photons from other SFWM processes are effectively suppressed while preserving target entangled pairs, thereby significantly enhancing the SKR. Furthermore, our approach leverages the intrinsic efficiency differences of SFWM processes and a time-sharing method to achieve key rate equalization across the network. The performance enhancement is analyzed through theoretical analysis and numerical simulation. Our work resolves key bottlenecks in pump-management entanglement distribution networks, as well as establishes a powerful paradigm for performance optimization in future large-scale quantum networks.
The entanglement distribution network connects remote users through sharing entanglement resources, which is essential for realizing quantum internet. We proposed a controllable entanglement distribution network (c-EDN) based on a silicon quantum photonic chip. The entanglement resources were generated by a quantum light source array based on spontaneous four-wave mixing (SFWM) in silicon waveguides and distributed to different users through time-reversed Hong-Ou-Mandel interferences in on-chip Mach-Zehnder interferometers with thermal phase shifters. A chip sample was designed and fabricated, supporting a c-EDN with 3 subnets and 24 users. The network topology of entanglement distributions could be reconfigured in three network states by controlling the quantum interferences through the phase shifters, which was demonstrated experimentally. Furthermore, a reconfigurable entanglement-based QKD network was realized as an application of the c-EDN. The reconfigurable network topology makes the c-EDN suitable for future quantum networks requiring complicated network control and management. Moreover, it is also shows that silicon quantum photonic chips have great potential for large-scale c-EDN, thanks to their capacities on generating and manipulating plenty of entanglement resources.
In this paper, we propose a quantum clock synchronization (QCS) network scheme with silicon-chip dual-pumped entangled photon source. This scheme couples two pump beams into the silicon-based waveguide, where degenerate and non-degenerate spontaneous four-wave mixing (SFWM) occurs, generating entanglement between one signal channel and three idler channels. The entangled photons are distributed to remote users through the wavelength division multiplexing strategy to construct an entanglement distribution network, and the round-trip QCS is adopted to realize a QCS network that can serve multiple users. A proof-of-principle QCS network experiment is implemented among the server and multiple users (Alice, Bob, and Charlie) for 11.1 hours, where Alice and Charlie are 10 km away from the server and Bob is 25 km away from the server. The lowest time deviations (TDEV) between the server and each user (Alice, Bob, and Charlie) are 1.57 ps, 0.82 ps and 2.57 ps at the average time of 8000 s, 8000 s and 800 s respectively. The results show that the QCS network scheme with dual-pumped SFWM photon source proposed by us achieves high accuracy, and the channel resources used by n users are reduced by about 30% compared with other round-trip QCS schemes.
The entanglement distribution network connects remote users by sharing entanglement resources, which is essential for realizing quantum internet. We propose a photonic-reconfigurable entanglement distribution network (PR-EDN) based on a silicon quantum photonic chip. The entanglement resources are generated by a quantum light source array based on spontaneous four-wave mixing in silicon waveguides and distributed to different users through time-reversed Hong–Ou–Mandel interference by on-chip Mach–Zehnder interferometers with thermo-optic phase shifters (TOPSs). A chip sample is designed and fabricated, supporting a PR-EDN with 3 subnets and 24 users. The network topology of the PR-EDN could be reconfigured in three network states by controlling the quantum interference through the TOPSs, which is demonstrated experimentally. Furthermore, a reconfigurable entanglement-based quantum key distribution network is realized as an application of the PR-EDN. The reconfigurable network topology makes the PR-EDN suitable for future quantum networks requiring complicated network control and management. Moreover, it is also shown that silicon quantum photonic chips have great potential for large-scale PR-EDN, thanks to their capacities for generating and manipulating plenty of entanglement resources.