We investigate quantum repeater protocols based upon atomic qubit-entanglement distribution through optical coherent-state communication. Various measurement schemes for an optical mode entangled with two spatially separated atomic qubits are considered in order to nonlocally prepare conditional two-qubit entangled states. In particular, generalized measurements for unambiguous state discrimination enable one to completely eliminate spin-flip errors in the resulting qubit states, as they would occur in a homodyne-based scheme due to the finite overlap of the optical states in phase space. As a result, by using weaker coherent states, high initial fidelities can still be achieved for larger repeater spacing, at the expense of lower entanglement generation rates. In this regime, the coherent-state-based protocols start resembling single-photon-based repeater schemes.
In the framework of cavity QED, we propose a quantum repeater scheme that uses coherent light and atoms coupled to optical cavities. In contrast to conventional schemes, we exploit solely the cavity QED evolution for the entire quantum repeater scheme and, thus, avoid any explicit execution of quantum logical gates. The entanglement distribution between the repeater nodes is realized with the help of pulses of coherent light interacting with the atom-cavity system in each repeater node. In our previous paper [D. Gonta and P. van Loock, Phys. Rev. A 86, 052312 (2012)], we already proposed a dyn…
In the framework of cavity QED, we propose a quantum repeater scheme that uses coherent light and chains of atoms coupled to optical cavities. In contrast to conventional repeater schemes, we avoid the usage of two-qubit quantum logical gates by exploiting solely the cavity QED evolution. In our previous paper [D. Gonta and P. van Loock: Phys. Rev. A 88, 052308 (2013)], we already proposed a quantum repeater in which the entanglement between two neighboring repeater nodes was distributed using controlled displacements of input coherent light, while the produced low-fidelity entangled pairs wer…
The aim of this paper is to swap the entanglement between two separate long distant locations. The well-known entangled coherent states as two-mode continuous-variable states are very interesting in quantum teleportation and entanglement swapping processes. To make our investigation more realistic, by using such entangled states as the building block of our quantum repeater protocol, the effect of decoherence on the swapped entanglement is also considered. We explicitly establish our model for four locations, moreover, we find that our model can be extended to 2N locations, where N = 3; 4; ...…
We analyze how the performance of a quantum-repeater network depends on the protocol employed to distribute entanglement, and we find that the choice of repeater-to-repeater link protocol has a profound impact on communication rate as a function of hardware parameters. We develop numerical simulations of quantum networks using different protocols, where the repeater hardware is modeled in terms of key performance parameters, such as photon generation rate and collection efficiency. These parameters are motivated by recent experimental demonstrations in quantum dots, trapped ions, and nitrogen-…
Entangled coherent states can be prepared remotely by subtracting non-locally a single photon from two quantum superpositions of coherent states, the so-called "Schroedinger's cat" state. Such entanglement can further be distributed over longer distances by successive entanglement swapping operations using linear optics and photon-number resolving detectors. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the performance of this approach to quantum repeaters for long distance quantum communications. Despite many attractive features at first sight, we show that, when using state-of-the-art photon counters…
One of the main problems in quantum communications is how to achieve high rates at long distances. Quantum repeaters, i.e., untrusted, intermediate relay stations, are necessary to overcome the repeaterless bound which sets the fundamental rate-distance limit of repeaterless communications. In this work, we introduce a continuous-variable protocol which overcomes the repeaterless bound and scales like the single-repeater bound using just one linear-optical device called a "quantum scissor", combining the entanglement distillation and entanglement swapping elements of previous repeater proposal…
In quantum communication via noisy channels, the error probability scales exponentially with the length of the channel. We present a scheme of a quantum repeater that overcomes this limitation. The central idea is to connect a string of (imperfect) entangled pairs of particles by using a novel nested purification protocol, thereby creating a single distant pair of high fidelity. The scheme tolerates general errors on the percent level.
Long-distance quantum communication requires quantum repeaters to overcome photon loss in optical fibers. Here we demonstrate a repeater node with two memory atoms in an optical cavity. Both atoms are individually and repeatedly entangled with photons that are distributed until each communication partner has independently received one of them. An atomic Bell-state measurement followed by classical communication serves to establish a key. We demonstrate scaling advantage of the key rate, increase the effective attenuation length by a factor of two, and beat the error-rate threshold of 11\% for …
Quantum repeaters are essential ingredients for quantum networks that link distant quantum modules such as quantum computers and sensors. Motivated by distributed quantum computing and communication, quantum repeaters that relay discrete-variable quantum information have been extensively studied; while continuous-variable (CV) quantum information underpins a variety of quantum sensing and communication application, a quantum-repeater architecture for genuine CV quantum information remains largely unexplored. This paper reports a CV quantum-repeater architecture based on CV quantum teleportatio…
We describe a quantum repeater protocol for long-distance quantum communication. In this scheme, entanglement is created between qubits at intermediate stations of the channel by using a weak dispersive light-matter interaction and distributing the outgoing bright coherent light pulses among the stations. Noisy entangled pairs of electronic spin are then prepared with high success probability via homodyne detection and postselection. The local gates for entanglement purification and swapping are deterministic and measurement-free, based upon the same coherent-light resources and weak interacti…
Quantum communication is at the forefront of quantum technology, enabling the development of absolutely secure encryption, distributed quantum computing, teleportation and more. Whilst quantum communication has been experimentally demonstrated at distances on the order of hundreds of kilometers, the establishment of high-fidelity pairs shared over larger distances remains a formidable technical challenge due to attenuation. However, this may be overcome with the use of quantum repeaters. Here we propose a method to construct a robust quantum repeater network using only existing technology. Our…
We investigate the influence of memory errors in the quantum repeater scheme for long-range quantum communication. We show that the communication distance is limited in standard operation mode due to memory errors resulting from unavoidable waiting times for classical signals. We show how to overcome these limitations by (i) improving local memory, and (ii) introducing two new operational modes of the quantum repeater. In both operational modes, the repeater is run blindly, i.e. without waiting for classical signals to arrive. In the first scheme, entanglement purification protocols based on o…
A potential quantum internet would open up the possibility of realizing numerous new applications, including provably secure communication. Since losses of photons limit long-distance, direct quantum communication and widespread quantum networks, quantum repeaters are needed. The so-called PLOB-repeaterless bound [Pirandola et al., Nat. Commun. 8, 15043 (2017)] is a fundamental limit on the quantum capacity of direct quantum communication. Here, we analytically derive the quantum-repeater gain for error-corrected, one-way quantum repeaters based on higher-dimensional qudits for two different p…
Recently, Briegel et al. present a quantum repeaters protocol using nest entanglement purification for long distance quantum communication(Physical Review Letters \textbf{81},5932). In this paper we present a modified scheme for constructing an optimal quantum repeater using doubly entangled photon pairs that overcomes the limitations of quantum communication via noisy channels. Based on the imperfect quantum operations and classical communications, the polarization entangled quantum channels can be built with a better efficiency.
Quantum communication holds promise for unconditionally secure transmission of secret messages and faithful transfer of unknown quantum states. Photons appear to be the medium of choice for quantum communication. Owing to photon losses, robust quantum communication over long lossy channels requires quantum repeaters. It is widely believed that a necessary and highly demanding requirement for quantum repeaters is the existence of matter quantum memories at the repeater nodes. Here we show that such a requirement is, in fact, unnecessary by introducing the concept of all photonic quantum repeate…
In present-day quantum communications, one of the main problems is the lack of a quantum repeater design that can simultaneously secure high rates and long distances. Recent literature has established the end-to-end capacities that are achievable by the most general protocols for quantum and private communication within a quantum network, encompassing the case of a quantum repeater chain. However, whether or not a physical design exists to approach such capacities remains a challenging objective. Driven by this motivation, in this work, we put forward a design for continuous-variable quantum r…
Quantum communication enables a host of applications that cannot be achieved by classical communication means, with provably secure communication as one of the prime examples. The distance that quantum communication schemes can cover via direct communication is fundamentally limited by losses on the communication channel. By means of quantum repeaters, the reach of these schemes can be extended and chains of quantum repeaters could in principle cover arbitrarily long distances. In this work, we provide two efficient algorithms for determining the generation time and fidelity of the first gener…
Quantum correlations as the resource for quantum communication can be distributed over long distances by quantum repeaters. In this Letter, we introduce the notion of a noisy quantum repeater, and examine its role in quantum communication. Quantum correlations shared through noisy quantum repeaters are then characterized and their secrecy properties are studied. Remarkably, noisy quantum repeaters naturally introduce private states in the key distillation scenario, and consequently key distillation protocols are demonstrated to be more tolerant.
Losses of optical signals scale exponentially with the distance. Quantum repeaters are devices that tackle these losses in quantum communication by splitting the total distance into shorter parts. Today two types of quantum repeaters are subject of research in the field of quantum information: Those that use two-way communication and those that only use one-way communication. Here we explain the details of the performance analysis for repeaters of the second type. Furthermore we compare the two different schemes. Finally we show how the performance analysis generalizes to large-scale quantum n…
The communication distance of QKD is limited by exponential attenuation of photons propagating through optical fibers. However, it has been shown that introducing a quantum repeater can improve the order of the attenuation and is useful for extending the communication distance of QKD when the repeater noise is ignored. In this paper, we analyze the effectiveness of the quantum repeater when taking the repeater noise into consideration. We analyze the effectiveness also from the viewpoint of the security and show that QKD is secure even if a quantum repeater is used.
Using 2 km of standard telecom optical fibres, we teleport qubits carried by photons of 1310 nm wavelength to qubits in another lab carried by a photons of 1550 nm wavelength. The photons to be teleported and the necessary entangled photon pairs are created in two different non-linear crystals. The measured mean fidelity is of 81.2 %. We discuss how this could be used as quantum repeaters without quantum memories.
University of York（约克大学）；University College London（伦敦大学学院）
Quantum communications promises reliable transmission of quantum information, efficient distribution of entanglement and generation of completely secure keys. For all these tasks, we need to determine the optimal point-to-point rates that are achievable by two remote parties at the ends of a quantum channel, without restrictions on their local operations and classical communication, which can be unlimited and two-way. These two-way assisted capacities represent the ultimate rates that are reachable without quantum repeaters. By constructing an upperbound based on the relative entropy of entang…
The derivation of ultimate limits to communication over certain quantum repeater networks have provided extremely valuable benchmarks for assessing near-term quantum communication protocols. However, these bounds are usually derived in the limit of ideal devices and leave questions about the performance of practical implementations unanswered. To address this challenge, we quantify how the presence of loss in repeater stations affect the maximum attainable rates for quantum communication over linear repeater chains and more complex quantum networks. Extending the framework of node splitting, w…
We propose a novel one-way quantum repeater architecture based on photonic tree-cluster states. Encoding a qubit in a photonic tree-cluster protects the information from transmission loss and enables long-range quantum communication through a chain of repeater stations. As opposed to conventional approaches that are limited by the two-way communication time, the overall transmission rate of the current quantum repeater protocol is determined by the local processing time enabling very high communication rates. We further show that such a repeater can be constructed with as little as two station…
We propose a new approach to implement quantum repeaters for long distance quantum communication. Our protocol generates a backbone of encoded Bell pairs and uses the procedure of classical error correction during simultaneous entanglement connection. We illustrate that the repeater protocol with simple Calderbank-Shor-Steane (CSS) encoding can significantly extend the communication distance, while still maintaining a fast key generation rate.
Twin-field (TF) quantum key distribution (QKD) fundamentally alters the rate-distance relationship of QKD, offering the scaling of a single-node quantum repeater. Although recent experiments have demonstrated the new opportunities for secure long-distance communications allowed by TF-QKD, formidable challenges remain to unlock its true potential. Previous demonstrations have required intense stabilisation signals at the same wavelength as the quantum signals, thereby unavoidably generating Rayleigh scattering noise that limits the distance and bit rate. Here, we introduce a novel dual-band sta…
We report a coherence-preserving photon frequency down-conversion experiment based on difference-frequency generation in a periodically poled Lithium niobate waveguide, at the single-photon level. The coherence of the process has been demonstrated by measuring the phase coherence of pseudo single-photon time-bin qubits after frequency conversion with an interference visibility of > 96 %. This interface could be of interest for quantum repeater based hybrid networks.
We investigate quantum repeaters in the context of quantum key distribution. We optimize the secret key rate per memory per second with respect to different distillation protocols and distillation strategies. For this purpose, we also derive an analytical expression for the average number of entangled pairs created by the quantum repeater, including classical communication times for entanglement swapping and entanglement distillation. We investigate the impact of this classical communication time on the secret key rate. We finally study the effect of the detector efficiency on the secret key r…
We examine the viability of quantum repeaters based on two-species trapped ion modules for long distance quantum key distribution. Repeater nodes comprised of ion-trap modules of co-trapped ions of distinct species are considered. The species used for communication qubits has excellent optical properties while the other longer lived species serves as a memory qubit in the modules. Each module interacts with the network only via single photons emitted by the communication ions. Coherent Coulomb interaction between ions is utilized to transfer quantum information between the communication and me…
Quantum repeaters pave the way for long-distance quantum communications and quantum Internet, and the idea of quantum repeaters is based on entanglement swapping which requires the implementation of controlled quantum gates. Frequently measuring a quantum system affects its dynamics which is known as the quantum Zeno effect (QZE). Beyond slowing down its evolution, QZE can be used to control the dynamics of a quantum system by introducing a carefully designed set of operations between measurements. Here, we propose an entanglement swapping protocol based on QZE, which achieves almost unit fide…
We propose a heralded quantum repeater protocol based on the general interface between the circularly polarized photon and the quantum dot embedded in a double-sided optical microcavity. Our effective time-bin encoding on photons results in the deterministic faithful entanglement distribution with one optical fiber for the transmission of each photon in our protocol, not two or more. Our efficient parity-check detector implemented with only one input-output process of a single photon as a result of cavity quantum electrodynamics makes the entanglement channel extension and entanglement purific…
Optical telecommunication is at the heart of today's internet and is currently enabled by the transmission of intense optical signals between remote locations. As we look to the future of telecommunication, quantum mechanics promise new ways to be able to transmit and process that information. Demonstrations of quantum key distribution and quantum teleportation using multi-photon states have been performed, but only over ranges limited to one hundred kilometers. To go beyond this, we need repeaters that are compatible with these quantum multi-photon continuous variables pulses. Here we present…
Quantum repeaters are a promising platform for realizing long-distance quantum communication and thus could form the backbone of a secure quantum internet, a scalable quantum network, or a distributed quantum computer. Repeater protocols that encode information in single- or multi-photon states are limited by transmission losses and the cost of implementing entangling gates or Bell measurements. In this work, we consider implementing a quantum repeater protocol using Gottesman-Kitaev-Preskill (GKP) qubits. These qubits are natural elements for quantum repeater protocols, because they allow for…
Quantum repeaters are indispensable tools for long-distance quantum communication. However, frequency matching between entangled photon sources and remote quantum memories (QMs) is difficult, which is an obstacle to the implementation of quantum repeaters. In this paper, we demonstrate a method to achieve the coupling of a Pr:YSO as a fixed-time QM with a single telecommunication-wavelength photon through frequency stabilization using an optical frequency comb over all applied laser wavelengths. The demonstrated method can lead to the implementation of a quantum repeater scheme enabling an imp…
Long-distance quantum communication via distant pairs of entangled quantum bits (qubits) is the first step towards more secure message transmission and distributed quantum computing. To date, the most promising proposals require quantum repeaters to mitigate the exponential decrease in communication rate due to optical fiber losses. However, these are exquisitely sensitive to the lifetimes of their memory elements. We propose a multiplexing of quantum nodes that should enable the construction of quantum networks that are largely insensitive to the coherence times of the quantum memory elements…
Quantum repeaters are indispensable for high-rate, long-distance quantum communications. The vision of a future quantum internet strongly hinges on realizing quantum repeaters in practice. Numerous repeaters have been proposed for discrete-variable (DV) single-photon-based quantum communications. Continuous variable (CV) encodings over the quadrature degrees of freedom of the electromagnetic field mode offer an attractive alternative. For example, CV transmission systems are easier to integrate with existing optical telecom systems compared to their DV counterparts. Yet, repeaters for CV have …
Until quantum repeaters become mature, quantum networks remain restricted either to limited areas of directly connected nodes or to nodes connected to a common node. We circumvent this limitation by conceiving quantum networks using secure classical repeaters combined with the quantum secure direct communication (QSDC) principle, which is a compelling form of quantum communication that directly transmits information over quantum channel. The final component of this promising solution is our classical quantum-resistant algorithm. Explicitly, in these networks, the ciphertext gleaned from a quan…
We investigate secret key rates for the quantum repeater using encoding [L. Jiang et al., Phys. Rev. A 79, 032325 (2009)] and compare them to the standard repeater scheme by Briegel, Dür, Cirac, and Zoller. The former scheme has the advantage of a minimal consumption of classical communication. We analyze the trade-off in the secret key rate between the communication time and the required resources. For this purpose, we introduce an error model for the repeater using encoding which allows for input Bell states with a fidelity smaller than one, in contrast to the model given in [L. Jiang et al.…
Quantum communication is a method that offers efficient and secure ways for the exchange of information in a network. Large-scale quantum communication (of the order of 100 km) has been achieved; however, serious problems occur beyond this distance scale, mainly due to inevitable photon loss in the transmission channel. Quantum communication eventually fails when the probability of a dark count in the photon detectors becomes comparable to the probability that a photon is correctly detected. To overcome this problem, Briegel, Dür, Cirac and Zoller (BDCZ) introduced the concept of quantum repea…
Quantum communication enables the implementation of tasks that are unachievable with classical resources. However, losses on the communication channel preclude the direct long-distance transmission of quantum information in many relevant scenarios. In principle quantum repeaters allow one to overcome losses. However, realistic hardware parameters make long-distance quantum communication a challenge in practice. For instance, in many protocols an entangled pair is generated that needs to wait in quantum memory until the generation of an additional pair. During this waiting time the first pair d…
The endeavour to develop quantum networks gave rise to a rapidly developing field with far reaching applications such as secure communication and the realisation of distributed computing tasks. This ultimately calls for the creation of flexible multi-user structures that allow for quantum communication between arbitrary pairs of parties in the network and facilitate also multi-user applications. To address this challenge, we propose a 2D quantum repeater architecture to establish long-distance entanglement shared between multiple communication partners in the presence of channel noise and impe…
We introduce measurement-based quantum repeaters, where small-scale measurement-based quantum processors are used to perform entanglement purification and entanglement swapping in a long-range quantum communication protocol. In the scheme, pre-prepared entangled states stored at intermediate repeater stations are coupled with incoming photons by simple Bell-measurements, without the need of performing additional quantum gates or measurements. We show how to construct the required resource states, and how to minimize their size. We analyze the performance of the scheme under noise and imperfect…
We propose an efficient quantum repeater architecture with mesoscopic atomic ensembles, where the Rydberg blockade is employed for deterministic local entanglement generation, entanglement swapping and entanglement purification. Compared with conventional atomic-ensemble-based quantum repeater, the entanglement distribution rate is improved by up to two orders of magnitude with the help of the deterministic Rydberg gate. This new quantum repeater scheme is robust and fast, and thus opens up a new way for practical long-distance quantum communication.
We present an exact rate analysis for a secret key that can be shared among two parties employing a linear quantum repeater chain. One of our main motivations is to address the question whether simply placing quantum memories along a quantum communication channel can be beneficial in a realistic setting. The underlying model assumes deterministic entanglement swapping of single-spin quantum memories and it excludes probabilistic entanglement distillation, and thus two-way classical communication, on higher nesting levels. Within this framework, we identify the essential properties of any optim…
We show how to distribute with percentage success probabilities almost perfectly entangled qubit memory pairs over repeater channel segments of the order of the optical attenuation distance. In addition to some weak, dispersive light-matter interactions, only Gaussian state transmissions and measurements are needed for this scheme, which even beats the coherent-state-benchmark for entanglement distribution based on error-free non-Gaussian measurements. This is achieved through two innovations: first, optical squeezed states are utilized instead of coherent states. Secondly, the amplitudes of t…
We present a protocol of remote nondestructive parity measurement (RNPM) on a pair of quantum memories. The protocol works as a single module for key operations such as entanglement generation, Bell measurement, parity check measurement, and an elementary gate for extending one-dimensional cluster states. The RNPM protocol is achieved by a simple combination of devices such as lasers, optical fibers, beam splitters, and photon detectors. Despite its simplicity, a quantum repeater composed of RNPM protocols is shown to have a communication time that scales sub-exponentially with the channel len…
Despite the tremendous progress of quantum cryptography, efficient quantum communication over long distances (>1000km) remains an outstanding challenge due to fiber attenuation and operation errors accumulated over the entire communication distance. Quantum repeaters, as a promising approach, can overcome both photon loss and operation errors, and hence significantly speedup the communication rate. Depending on the methods used to correct loss and operation errors, all the proposed QR schemes can be classified into three categories (generations). Here we present the first systematic comparison…
Conventional wisdom suggests that realistic quantum repeaters will require quasi-deterministic sources of entangled photon pairs. In contrast, we here study a quantum repeater architecture that uses simple parametric down-conversion sources, as well as frequency-multiplexed multimode quantum memories and photon-number resolving detectors. We show that this approach can significantly extend quantum communication distances compared to direct transmission. This shows that important trade-offs are possible between the different components of quantum repeater architectures.
Quantum entanglement is an indispensable resource for many significant quantum information processing tasks. However, because of the noise in quantum channels, it is difficult to distribute quantum entanglement over a long distance in practice. A solution for this challenge is the quantum repeater which can extend the distance of entanglement distribution. In this scheme, the time consumption of classical communication and local operations takes an important place in perspective of time efficiency. Motivated by this observation, we exploit the basic quantum repeater scheme in perspectives of n…
