A deterministic entanglement purification integrated photonics circuit is proposed. The purification protocol is simulated based on characterized data of on-chip devices and the state fidelity rises from 86% to 97.9%.
Entanglement purification is an essential component of quantum repeaters, as it can improve the fidelity of the distributed entangled states and mitigate the effects of the noisy channel. Successful purification yields entangled states with increased fidelity, whereas failed events can still retain residual entanglement that remains usable for further purification when the error rates of the two degrees of freedom (DOFs) are unbalanced. In this paper, we demonstrate a single-copy entanglement purification scheme based on hyperentanglement using silicon chips and experimentally observe the presence of residual entanglement. Leveraging the reconfigurability of integrated photonics, our scheme ensures that, under bit-flip noise acting on the two DOFs, residual entanglement suitable for further purification can always be obtained, regardless of which DOF has the higher error rate. Our results demonstrate the advantages of integrated photonics for quantum information processing and provide guidance for the optimized utilization of entanglement resources in on-chip entanglement purification and future quantum repeater systems.
Quantum repeaters are employed in quantum communication to overcome the long-distance transmission loss of quantum states. The quantum repeater is based on various key technologies, including quantum entanglement swapping, quantum memory, and entanglement purification. In particular, quantum purification can distil high-quality entanglement from the degraded entangled states which is propagating through noisy quantum communication channels. Although previous reports have demonstrated on-chip entanglement swapping and teleportation through the less-noisy channel, current entanglement purification experiments still rely on off-chip discrete devices, leading to limitations on scalability, stability, and controllability. In this paper, for the first time, we demonstrated chip-to-chip hyperentanglement distribution and quantum entanglement purification based on integrated silicon chips. Path-encoded high-dimensional entangled photon pairs are produced on the chip, converted to fibre-based polarization-spatial hyperentanglement by grating couplers, distributed to the receiver silicon chip, and finally purified by consuming the spatial degree of freedom. Our purification scheme by integrated photonics finished the last puzzle of on-chip quantum repeater, which will promote the realization of the quantum repeater based on integrated photonics.
Abstract Quantum repeaters are employed in quantum communication to overcome the long-distance transmission loss of quantum states. The quantum repeater is based on various key technologies, including quantum entanglement swapping, quantum memory, and entanglement purification. In particular, quantum purification can distil high-quality entanglement from the degraded entangled states which is propagating through noisy quantum communication channels. Although previous reports have demonstrated on-chip entanglement swapping and teleportation through the less-noisy channel, current entanglement purification experiments still rely on off-chip discrete devices, leading to limitations on scalability, stability and controllability. In this paper, for the first time, we demonstrated chip-to-chip hyperentanglment distribution and quantum entanglement purification based on integrated silicon chips. Path-encoded high-dimensional entangled photon pairs are produced on the chip, converted to fibre-based polarization-spatial hyperentanglement by grating couplers, distributed to the receiver silicon chip, and finally purified by consuming the spatial degree of freedom. Our purification scheme by integrated photonics finished the important puzzle of on-chip quantum repeater, which will promote the realization of the quantum repeater based on integrated photonics.
Entanglement purification protocols, designed to improve the fidelity of Bell states over quantum networks for inter-node communications, have attracted significant attention over the last few decades. These protocols have great potential to resolve a core challenge in quantum networking of generating high-fidelity Bell states. However, previous studies focused on the theoretical discussion with limited consideration of realistic errors. Studies of dynamically selecting the right purification protocol under various realistic errors that occur in practice have yet to be performed. In this work, we study the performance of various purification protocols under realistic errors by conducting density matrix simulations over a large suite of error models. Based on our findings of how specific error channels affect the performance of purification protocols, we propose a module that can be embedded in the quantum network. This module determines and selects the appropriate purification protocol, considering not only expected specifications from the network layer but also the capabilities of the physical layer. Finally, the performance of our proposed module is verified using two benchmark categories. Compared with the default approach and exhaustive search approach, we show a success rate approaching 90% in identifying the optimal purification protocol for our target applications.
Integrated optical platforms enable the realization of complex quantum photonic circuits for a variety of applications including quantum simulations, computations, and communications. The development of on-chip integrated photon sources, providing photon quantum states with on-demand tunability, is currently an important \nresearch area. A flexible approach for on-chip generation of entangled photons is based on spontaneous nonlinear \nfrequency conversion, with possibilities to integrate several photon-pair sources [1] and realize subsequent post \nprocessing using thermo-optically or electro-optically controlled interference [2, 3]. However, deterministic postprocessing can only provide a limited set of output states, whereas quantum gates with probabilistic operation are \nneeded to generate arbitrary two-photon states [4].