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Optica

High-dimensional entangled quantum networks with adaptive subspace division

Zhen-Qiu Zhong, Xiao-Hai Zhan, Jia-Lin Chen, Shuang Wang, Zhen−Qiang Yin, De‐Yong He, Wei Chen, Guang‐Can Guo, Zhen-fu Han

Published Jul 13, 2026• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Quantum communication networks are essential for secure information transfer and distributed quantum technologies. High-dimensional entanglement is a promising resource for such networks because it can increase the information capacity and offer greater potential. However, its practical advantages have not been fully explored, and existing demonstrations have not shown clear benefits over two-dimensional networks under realistic conditions. Here, we demonstrate a metropolitan-scale high-dimensional entangled network with active subspace division, showing potential practical benefits in key rate, flexibility, and noise resilience. Using hybrid polarization-time-bin encoding, we distribute high-dimensional entanglement over single-mode fiber channels. The transmission distance exceeds previous network-level high-dimensional implementations by three orders of magnitude, while active phase compensation supports long-term stable operation. Our network can also coexist with classical signals, and its reconfigurable subspace division provides the adaptability needed for practical quantum networks. These results show a practical route toward large-scale, high-performance quantum communication networks.

DOI
10.1364/optica.596777

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Quantum communication networks are essential for secure information transfer and distributed quantum technologies. High-dimensional entanglement is a promising resource for such networks because it can increase the information capacity and offer greater potential. However, its practical advantages have not been fully explored, and existing demonstrations have not shown clear benefits over two-dimensional networks under realistic conditions. Here, we demonstrate a metropolitan-scale high-dimensional entangled network with active subspace division, showing potential practical benefits in key rate, flexibility, and noise resilience. Using hybrid polarization-time-bin encoding, we distribute high-dimensional entanglement over single-mode fiber channels. The transmission distance exceeds previous network-level high-dimensional implementations by three orders of magnitude, while active phase compensation supports long-term stable operation. Our network can also coexist with classical signals, and its reconfigurable subspace division provides the adaptability needed for practical quantum networks. These results show a practical route toward large-scale, high-performance quantum communication networks.
High-dimensional entanglement not only offers a high security level for quantum communication but also promises improved information capacity and noise resistance of the system. However, due to various constraints on different high-dimensional degrees of freedom, whether these advantages can bring improvement to the actual implementation is still not well proven. Here we present a scheme to fully utilize these advantages over long-distance noisy fiber channels. We exploit polarization and time-bin hyperentanglement to achieve high-dimensional coding, and observe significant enhancements in secure key rates and noise tolerance that surpass the capabilities of qubit systems. Moreover, the demonstration achieves a distribution up to 50 km, which is the longest distance for high-dimensional entanglement-based quantum key distribution up to date, to our knowledge. Our demonstration validates the potential of high-dimensional entanglement for quantum communications over long-distance noisy channels, paving the way for a resilient and resource-efficient quantum network.
Quantum communication technologies capable of operating reliably across heterogeneous optical channels are essential for scalable metropolitan quantum networks. Here we demonstrate high-dimensional time-bin-encoded quantum key distribution over a hybrid metropolitan link comprising 1.7 km free-space transmission and 685 m of optical fiber. Operating at a clock rate of 500 MHz in the C-band, we implement both 2- and 4-dimensional protocols, and obtain estimated secure finite-key rates of (95 +- 28) kbit/s for 4D at (25.0 +- 2.0) dB loss and (59 +- 27) kbit/s for 2D at (23.5 +- 2.3) dB loss. Crucially, we achieve continuous operation over 48 h in a fully self-referenced architecture: initial synchronization, interferometric phase stabilization, and long-term drift compensation are performed exclusively using the detected quantum signals, without auxiliary optical reference channels. Our results thus establish a practical and versatile platform for hybrid free-space-to-fiber quantum communication and show that the encoding dimensionality can be adapted to the optimal operating regime of realistic metropolitan channels, providing a pathway toward efficient, autonomous and deployable quantum network nodes.
Quantum networks scale the advantages of quantum communication protocols to more than just two distant users. Here we present a fully connected quantum network architecture in which a single entangled photon source distributes quantum states to a multitude of users [1] and our work scaling the network to a complete end to end metropolitan quantum network with 8 users [2] . Our network architecture optimises the resources required by each user without sacrificing security or functionality. We established several long-distance loopback connections and demonstrated extended stable operation with high secure key rates. Unlike previous attempts at multi-user networks, which have been based on active components, and thus limited to some duty cycle, our implementation is fully passive. Further, we present our efforts towards coexistence of 100 Gbps classical communication and all quantum channels used in the network over the same deployed optical fibres.
Abstract Quantum networks enhance quantum communication schemes and link multiple users over large areas. Harnessing high dimensional quantum states - qu-d-its - allows for a denser transfer of information with increased robustness to noise compared to qubits. Frequency encoded qu-d-its can be manipulated at telecom wavelengths with off-the-shelf fibered devices. We use a low free spectral range silicon microresonator to propose, assess and optimize a reconfigurable entanglement-based quantum key distribution network with frequency-bin encoded Bell states of dimension d = 2 and d = 3, using a single fibered hardware. We achieve secure key rates of 1374 bit/s with qutrits ( d = 3), and estimate the communication range to 295 km with qubits ( d = 2) across 21 parallel two-user quantum channels. This multi-dimensional versatile demonstration is stable beyond 21 h and lays the groundwork for larger dimensionality implementations deployed on metropolitan fiber links.
High-dimensional quantum entanglement can enrich the functionality of quantum information processing. For example, it can enhance the channel capacity for linear optic superdense coding and decrease the error rate threshold of quantum key distribution. Long-distance distribution of a high-dimensional entanglement is essential for such advanced quantum communications over a communications network. Here, we show a long-distance distribution of a four-dimensional entanglement. We employ time-bin entanglement, which is suitable for a fibre transmission, and implement scalable measurements for the high-dimensional entanglement using cascaded Mach-Zehnder interferometers. We observe that a pair of time-bin entangled photons has more than 1 bit of secure information capacity over 100 km. Our work constitutes an important step towards secure and dense quantum communications in a large Hilbert space.
Quantum networks scale the advantages of quantum communication protocols to more than just two distant users. Here we present a fully connected quantum network architecture in which a single entangled photon source distributes quantum states to a multitude of users [1] and our work scaling the network to a complete end to end metropolitan quantum network with 8 users [2]. Our network architecture optimises the resources required by each user without sacrificing security or functionality. We established several long-distance loopback connections and demonstrated extended stable operation with high secure key rates. Unlike previous attempts at multi-user networks, which have been based on active components, and thus limited to some duty cycle, our implementation is fully passive. Further, we present our efforts towards coexistence of 100 Gbps classical communication and all quantum channels used in the network over the same deployed optical fibres. Most importantly, we have used our network to implement a wide variety of protocols. These protocols overcome major limitations of quantum networks and each of them represent the first implementation of that class of protocols on a large scale network.