Low-Complexity Degenerate Entanglement- Assisted Communication Systems for Strong Atmospheric Turbulence Channels
Ivan B. Djordjević
We propose a low-complexity degenerate entanglement-assisted free-space optical (FSO) communication system employing a two-pumps approach, a type-0 periodically poled lithium niobate (PPLN) waveguide, a multistage WDM demultiplexer, and a properly biased Mach-Zehnder modulator on transmitter side and, for binary phase-shift keying (BPSK) signaling, a single PIN photodetector or avalanche photodetector (APD) on a receiver side. Two-pumps-based approach utilizes two independent pump lasers operating at telecom wavelengths. The portion of degenerate entangled photons is used as the unmodulated carrier and the rest to transmit the modulated PSK/quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) signal. The unmodulated portion of entangled photons is selected by properly choosing the bias voltage and phase representing the transmitted bits. In BPSK signaling, the unmodulated carrier photons are used on receiver side to reconstruct the transmitted symbol by beating them with modulated signal photons on either PIN photodetector or APD. We also describe how to implement the M-ary PSK and QAM transmitters for the degenerate entanglement assisted communications. Further, we propose a low-complexity PSK/QAM demodulator compatible with the proposed degenerate entanglement assisted communication concept. To demonstrate the quantum advantage, we conducted 1 Gb/s degenerate entanglement assisted BPSK experiments over a 1.5 km terrestrial FSO link we have developed previously at the University of Arizona, between ECE Dept. and Optical Sciences Meinel buildings. We demonstrate that in the strong atmospheric turbulence regime the proposed low-complexity degenerate entanglement assisted communication system performs significantly better compared to corresponding classical laser and thermal source-based communications counterparts.
IEEE Access•Jan 1, 2026•2 citations