Entanglement in the spatial degrees of freedom of photons is an interesting resource for quantum information. For practical distribution of such entangled photons it is desireable to use an optical fiber, which in this case has to support multiple transverse modes. Here we report the use of a hollow-core photonic crystal fiber to transport spatially entangled qubits.
Even and odd vector modes in optical fibers are represented with linear combinations of orbital angular momentum modes, and considered as single-photon spin-orbit entangled states. It renders generating such states with fiber structures possible.
We demonstrate a novel polarization-entangled photon-pair source based on standard birefringent polarization-maintaining optical fiber. The source consists of two stretches of fiber spliced together with perpendicular polarization axes, and has the potential to be fully fiber-based, with all bulk optics replaced with in-fiber equivalents. By modelling the temporal walk-off in the fibers, we implement compensation necessary for the photon creation processes in the two stretches of fiber to be indistinguishable. Our source subsequently produces a high quality entangled state having (92.2 \pm 0.2…
We suggest the generation of photon pairs in a thermally induced nonlinear periodically-poled silica fiber by spontaneous parametric down-conversion. Photons are generated directly in eigenstates of optical angular momentum. Photons in a pair can be entangled in these states as well as in frequencies. We identify suitable spatial and polarization modes giving an efficient nonlinear interaction. By changing the pump field properties both narrow- and broad-band down-converted fields can be obtained.
In this letter, we report a compact, low-power laser diode-pumped, all-fiber polarization-entangled photon pair source based on periodically-poled silica fiber technology. The all-fiber source offers room-temperature, alignment-free, turn-key operation, with low power consumption, and is packaged into a fanless, portable enclosure. It features a broad biphoton spectrum of more than 100nm with a concurrence that is greater than 0.96 for polarization entanglement. The source is stable over at least 10 hours of continuous operation, achieving coincidence-to-accidental ratios of more than 2000 con…
Integrated photonic circuits offer the possibility for complex quantum optical experiments in higher-dimensional photonic systems. However, the advantages of integration and scalability can only be fully utilized with the availability of a source for higher-dimensional entangled photons. Here, a novel fiber integrated source for path-entangled photons in the telecom band at 1.55\mum using only standard fiber technology is presented. Due to the special design the source shows good scalability towards higher-dimensional entangled photonic states (quNits), while path entanglement offers direct co…
The ultimate goal of quantum information science is to build a global quantum network, which enables quantum resources to be distributed and shared between remote parties. Such quantum network can be realized by all fiber elements, which takes advantage of low transmission loss,low cost, scalable and mutual fiber communication techniques such as dense wavelength division multiplexing. Therefore high quality entangled photon sources based on fibers are on demanding for building up such kind of quantum network. Here we report multiplexed polarization and timebin entanglement photon sources based…
High coherent frequency-entangled photons at telecom band are critical in quantum information protocols and quantum tele-communication. While photon pairs generated by spontaneous parametric down-conversion in nonlinear crystal or modulation instability in optical fiber exhibit random fluctuations, making the photons distinguishable among consecutive roundtrips. Here, we demonstrate a frequency-entangled photons based on parametric instability in an active fiber ring cavity, where periodic modulation of dispersion excites parametric resonance. The characteristic wave number in parametric insta…
The capacity of optical communication channels can be increased by space division multiplexing in structured optical fibers. Radial core optical fibers allows for the propagation of twisted light--eigenmodes of orbital angular momentum, which have attracted considerable attention for high-dimensional quantum information. Here we study the generation of entangled photons that are tailor-made for coupling into ring core optical fibers. We show that the coupling of photon pairs produced by parametric down-conversion can be increased by close to a factor of three by pumping the non-linear crystal …
Polarization-entangled photon pair generation based on two scalar scattering processes of the vector four photon scattering has been demonstrated experimentally in high nonlinear microstructure fiber with birefringence. By controlling the pump polarization state, polarization-entangled Bell states can be realized. It is provides a simple way to realize efficient and compact fiber based polarization-entangled photon pair sources.
We propose a new all-fiber source of polarization-entangled photon pairs for quantum communications. Fiber birefringence is compensated using Faraday rotator mirror, resulting in enhanced stability against random polarization drifts compared to existing schemes.
We report on theoretical and experimental demonstration of high-efficiency coupling of two-photon entangled states produced in the nonlinear process of spontaneous parametric down conversion into a single-mode fiber. We determine constraints for the optimal coupling parameters. This result is crucial for practical implementation of quantum key distribution protocols with entangled states.
We present a consistent multimode theory that describes the coupling of single photons generated by collinear Type-I parametric down-conversion into single-mode optical fibers. We have calculated an analytic expression for the fiber diameter which maximizes the pair photon count rate. For a given focal length and wavelength, a lower limit of the fiber diameter for satisfactory coupling is obtained.
In this paper, the generation of polarization entangled photon pairs at 1.5 μm is experimentally demonstrated utilizing a polarization maintaining all-fiber loop, consisting of a piece of commercial polarization maintaining fiber and a polarization beam splitter/combiner with polarization maintaining fiber pigtails. A quantum state tomography measurement is performed to analyze the entanglement characteristic of the generated quantum state. In the experiment, a polarization entangled Bell state is generated with a entanglement fidelity of 0.97+/-0.03 and a purity of 0.94+/-0.03 demonstrating t…
We experimentally demonstrate the generation of a three-photon discrete-energy-entangled W state using multi-photon-pair generation by spontaneous four-wave mixing in an optical fiber. We show that by making use of prior information on the photon source we can verify the state produced by this source without resorting to frequency conversion.
Over the past decade, Airy beams have been the subject of extensive research, leading to new physical insights and various applications. In this letter, we extend the concept of Airy beams to the quantum domain. We generate entangled photons in a superposition of two-photon Airy states via spontaneous parametric down conversion, pumped by a classical Airy beam. We show that the entangled Airy photons preserve the intriguing properties of classical Airy beams, such as free acceleration and reduced diffraction, while exhibiting non-classical anti-correlations.
We have studied the purity of entangled photon-pairs generated in a dispersion-shifted fiber at various temperatures. Two-photon interference with visibility > 98% is observed at 77K, without subtraction of the background Raman photons.
We report the generation of polarization entangled photon pairs in the 1550-nm wavelength band using spontaneous four-wave mixing in a dispersion-shifted fiber loop. The use of the fiber-loop configuration made it possible to generate polarization entangled states very stably. With accidental coincidences subtracted, we obtained coincidence fringes with >90 % visibilities, and observed a violation of Bell's inequality by seven standard deviations. We also confirmed the preservation of the quantum correlation between the photons even after they had been separated by 20 km of optical fiber.
Entanglement distribution between distant parties is one of the most important and challenging tasks in quantum communication. Distribution of photonic entangled states using optical fiber links is a fundamental building block towards quantum networks. Among the different degrees of freedom, orbital angular momentum (OAM) is one of the most promising due to its natural capability to encode high dimensional quantum states. In this article, we experimentally demonstrate fiber distribution of hybrid polarization-vector vortex entangled photon pairs. To this end, we exploit a recently developed ai…
We demonstrate a fiber-based source of polarization-entangled photon pairs at visible wavelengths suitable for integration with local quantum processing schemes. The photons are created through birefringent phase-matching in spontaneous four-wave mixing inside a Sagnac interferometer. We address entanglement degradation due to temporal distinguishability of the photons to enable the generation of a spectrally unfiltered polarization-entangled photon-pair state with $95.86\pm0.10%$ fidelity to a maximally entangled Bell state, evaluated with a tomographic state reconstruction without applying a…
We present a full implementation of a quantum key distribution system using energy-time entangled photon pairs and functioning with a 30km standard telecom fiber quantum channel. Two bases of two orthogonal states are implemented and the setup is quite robust to environmental constraints such as temperature variation. Two different ways to manage chromatic dispersion in the quantum channel are discussed.
We present an all fiber source of frequency entangled photon pairs by using four wave mixing in a Sagnac fiber loop. Special care is taken to suppress the impurity of the frequency entanglement by cooling the fiber and by matching the polarization modes of the photon pairs counter-propagating in the fiber loop. Coincidence detection of signal and idler photons, which are created in pair and in different spatial modes of the fiber loop, shows the quantum interference in the form of spatial beating, while the single counts of the individual signal (idler) photons keep constant. When the producti…
We present an experimental proposal for the generation of photon triplets based on third-order spontaneous para- metric downconversion in thin optical fibers. Our analysis includes expressions for the quantum state, which de- scribes the photon triplets and for the generation rate in terms of all experimental parameters. We also present, for a specific source design, numerically calculated generation rates.
Non-classical light sources based on a single quantum emitter are considered as core technology for multiple quantum network architectures. A large variety of sources has been developed, but the generated photons remained far from being utilized in established standard fiber networks. Here, we report a week-long transmission of polarization-entangled photons from a single InAs/GaAs quantum dot over a metropolitan network fiber. The emitted photons are in the telecommunication O-band, favored for fiber optical communication. We employ a polarization stabilization system overcoming changes of bi…
In this letter, we report a polarization-entangled photon-pair source based on type-II spontaneous parametric down conversion at telecom O-band in periodically poled silica fiber (PPSF). The photon-pair source exhibits more than 130 nm (~24 THz) emission bandwidth centered at 1306.6 nm. The broad emission spectrum results in a short biphoton correlation time and we experimentally demonstrate a Hong-Ou-Mandel interference dip with a full width of 26.6 fs at half maximum. Owing to the low birefringence of the PPSF, the biphotons generated from type-II SPDC are polarization-entangled over the ent…
Quantum measurements that use the entangled photons' polarization to encode quantum information require calibration and alignment of the measurement bases between spatially separate observers. Because of the changing birefringence in optical fibers arising from temperature fluctuations or external mechanical vibrations, the polarization state at the end of a fiber channel is unpredictable and time-varying. Polarization tracking and stabilization methods originally developed for classical optical communications cannot be applied to polarization-entangled photons, where the separately detected p…
We demonstrate non-degenerate down-conversion at 810 and 1550 nm for long-distance fiber based quantum communication using polarization entangled photon pairs. Measurements of the two-photon visibility, without dark count subtraction, have shown that the quantum correlations (raw visibility 89%) allow secure quantum cryptography after 100 km of non-zero dispersion shifted fiber using commercially available single photon detectors. In addition, quantum state tomography has revealed little degradation of state negativity, decreasing from 0.99 at the source to 0.93 after 100 km, indicating minima…
We theoretically demonstrate a method for producing the maximally path-entangled state (1/Sqrt[2]) (|N,0> + exp[iN phi] |0,N>) using intensity-symmetric multiport beamsplitters, single photon inputs, and either photon-counting postselection or conditional measurement. The use of postselection enables successful implementation with non-unit efficiency detectors. We also demonstrate how to make the same state more conveniently by replacing one of the single photon inputs by a coherent state.
Light shaping facilitates the preparation and detection of optical states and underlies many applications in communications, computing, and imaging. In this Letter, we generalize light shaping to the quantum domain. We show that patterns of phase modulation for classical laser light can also shape higher orders of spatial coherence, allowing deterministic tailoring of high-dimensional quantum entanglement. By modulating spatially entangled photon pairs, we create periodic, topological, and random patterns of quantum illumination, without effect on intensity. We then structure the quantum illum…
Entanglement distribution over long distances is essential for many quantum communication schemes like quantum teleportation, some variants of quantum key distribution, or implementations of a quantum internet. Distributing entanglement through standard telecommunication fiber is particularly important for quantum key distribution protocols with low vulnerability over metropolitan distances. However, entanglement distribution over long distance through optical fiber so far could only be accomplished with moderate photon pair rates. In this work, we present entanglement distribution over 50km o…
We demonstrate a wavelength-tunable, fiber-coupled source of polarization-entangled photons with extremely high spectral brightness and quality of entanglement. Using a 25 mm PPKTP crystal inside a polarization Sagnac interferometer we detect a spectral brightness of 273000 pairs/(s mW nm), a factor of 28 better than comparable previous sources while state tomography showed the two-photon state to have a tangle of T=0.987. This improvement was achieved by use of a long crystal, careful selection of focusing parameters and single-mode fiber coupling. We demonstrate that, due to the particular g…
We present a fiber based source of polarization-entangled photon pairs that is well suited for quantum communication applications in the 1550nm band of standard fiber-optic telecommunications. Polarization entanglement is created by pumping a nonlinear-fiber Sagnac interferometer with two time-delayed orthogonally-polarized pump pulses and subsequently removing the time distinguishability by passing the parametrically scattered signal-idler photon pairs through a piece of birefringent fiber. Coincidence detection of the signal-idler photons yields biphoton interference with visibility greater …
Realizing long distance entanglement swapping with independent sources in the real-world condition is important for both future quantum network and fundamental study of quantum theory. Currently, demonstration over a few of tens kilometer underground optical fiber has been achieved. However, future applications demand entanglement swapping over longer distance with more complicated environment. We exploit two independent 1-GHz-clock sequential time-bin entangled photon-pair sources, develop several automatic stability controls, and successfully implement a field test of entanglement swapping o…
In this Letter, the generation of 1.5 μm discrete frequency entangled two-photon state is realized based on a piece of commercial polarization maintaining fiber (PMF). It is connected with a polarization beam splitter to realize a modified Sagnac fiber loop (MSFL). Correlated two-photon states are generated through spontaneous four wave-mixing process along the two propagation directions of the MSFL, and output from the MSFL with orthogonal polarizations. The quantum interference of them is realized through a 45° polarization collimation between polarization axes of PMFs inside and outside the…
The development and wide application of quantum technologies highly depend on the capacity of the communication channels distributing entanglement. Space-division multiplexing (SDM) enhanced channel capacities in classical telecommunication and bears the potential to transfer the idea to quantum communication using current infrastructure. Here, we demonstrate an SDM of polarization-entangled photons over a 411m long 19-core multicore fiber distributing polarization-entangled photon pairs through up to 12 channels simultaneously. The quality of the multiplexed transfer is evidenced by high pola…
Metasurfaces consisting of nano-scale structures are underpinning new physical principles for the creation and shaping of quantum states of light. Multi-photon states that are entangled in spatial or angular domains are an essential resource for quantum imaging and sensing applications, however their production traditionally relies on bulky nonlinear crystals. We predict and demonstrate experimentally the generation of spatially entangled photon pairs through spontaneous parametric down-conversion from a metasurface incorporating a nonlinear thin film of lithium niobate. This is achieved throu…
Multi-color entangled states of light including low-loss optical fiber transmission and atomic resonance frequencies are essential resources for future quantum information network. We present the experimental achievement on the three-color entanglement generation at 852 nm, 1550 nm and 1440 nm wavelengths for optical continuous variables. The entanglement generation system consists of two cascaded non-degenerated optical parametric oscillators (NOPOs). The flexible selectivity of nonlinear crystals in the two NOPOs and the tunable property of NOPO provide large freedom for the frequency select…
High-precision time transfer is of fundamental interest in physics and metrology. Quantum time transfer technologies that use frequency-entangled pulses and their coincidence detection have been proposed, offering potential enhancements in precision and better guarantees of security. In this paper, we describe a fiber-optic two-way quantum time transfer experiment. Using quantum nonlocal dispersion cancellation, time transfer over a 20-km fiber link achieves a time deviation of 922 fs over 5 s and 45 fs over 40960 s. The time transfer accuracy as a function of fiber lengths from 15 m to 20 km …
On-demand sources of entangled photons for the transmission of quantum information in the telecom C-band are required to realize fiber-based quantum networks. So far, non-deterministic sources of quantum states of light were used for long distance entanglement distribution in this lowest loss wavelength range. However, they are fundamentally limited in either efficiency or security due to their Poissonian emission statistics. Here, we show on-demand generation of entangled photon pairs in the telecom C-band by an InAs/GaAs semiconductor quantum dot. Using a robust phonon-assisted excitation sc…
We demonstrate experimental generation of spatially-entangled photon-pairs by spontaneous parametric down conversion (SPDC) using a partial spatially coherent pump beam. By varying the spatial coherence of the pump, we show its influence on the downconverted photon's spatial correlations and on their degree of entanglement, in excellent agreement with theory. We then exploit this property to produce pairs of photons with a specific degree of entanglement by tailoring of the pump coherence length. This work thus unravels the fundamental transfer of coherence occuring in SPDC processes, and prov…
What are the orbital angular momentum correlations between spatially entangled photon pairs generated in spontaneous parametric down-conversion? We show that the answer to this question can be given in two alternative, although complementary, ways. The answer posed in this letter explains satisfactorily the seemingly contradictory results obtained in different experiments, and theoretical approaches.
We report experimental distribution of time-bin entangled qubits over 50 km of optical fibers. Using actively stabilized preparation and measurement devices we demonstrate violation of the CHSH Bell inequality by more than 15 standard deviations without removing the detector noise. In addition we report a proof of principle experiment of quantum key distribution over 50 km of optical fibers using entangled photon.
Successful implementation of several quantum information and communication protocols require distributing entangled pairs of quantum bits in reliable manner. While there exists a substantial amount of recent theoretical and experimental activities dealing with non-Markovian quantum dynamics, experimental application and verification of the usefulness of memory-effects for quantum information tasks is still missing. We combine these two aspects and show experimentally that a recently introduced concept of nonlocal memory effects allows to protect and distribute polarization entangled pairs of p…
Photon modes have an important role in characterizing the quantum sources of light. Proper coupling of various photon modes obtained in spontaneous parametric down conversion (SPDC) process in optical fibers is essential to generate an effective source of entangled photons. The two main pre-detection factors affecting the biphoton mode coupling in SPDC are the pump beam focusing parameter and the crystal thickness. We present the numerical and experimental results on the effect of pump focusing on conditional down-converted photon modes for a Type-I BBO crystal. We experimentally verify that b…
Entanglement of remote atom lasers is obtained via quantum state transfer technique from lights to matter waves in a five-level $M$-type system. The considered atom-atom collisions can yield an effective Kerr susceptibility for this system and lead to the self- and cross- phase modulation between the two output atom lasers. This effect results in generation of entangled states of output fields. Particularly, under different conditions of space-dependent control fields, the entanglement of atom lasers and of atom-light fields can be obtained, respectively. Furthermore, based on the Bell-state m…
Spatially entangled twin photons allow the study of high-dimensional entanglement, and the Laguerre-Gauss modes are the most commonly used basis to discretize the single photon mode spaces. In this basis, to date only the azimuthal degree of freedom has been investigated experimentally due to its fundamental and experimental simplicity. We show that the full spatial entanglement is indeed accessible experimentally, i.e., we have found practicable radial detection modes with negligible cross correlations. This allows us to demonstrate hybrid azimuthal -- radial quantum correlations in a Hilbert…
This paper reports the first demonstration of the generation and distribution of entangled photon pairs in the 1.5-um band using spontaneous four-wave mixing in a cooled fiber. Noise photons induced by spontaneous Raman scattering were suppressed by cooling a dispersion shifted fiber with liquid nitrogen, which resulted in a significant improvement in the visibility of two-photon interference. By using this scheme, time-bin entangled qubits were successfully distributed over 60 km of optical fiber with a visibility of 76%, which was obtained without removing accidental coincidences.
We show the propagation of entangled states of high-dimensional quantum systems. The qudits states were generated using the transverse correlation of the twin photons produced by spontaneous parametric down-conversion. Their free-space distribution was performed at the laboratory scale and the propagated states maintained a high-fidelity with their original form. The use of entangled qudits allow an increase in the quantity of information that can be transmitted and may also guarantee more privacy for communicating parties. Therefore, studies about propagating entangled states of qudits are im…
We discuss the appearance of fractional topological phases on cyclic evolutions of entangled qudits encoded on photonic degrees of freedom. We show how the spatial correlations between photons generated by spontaneous parametric down conversion can be used to evidence the multiple topological phases acquired by entangled qudits and the role played by the Hilbert space dimension. A realistic experimental proposal is presented with numerical predictions of the expected results.
We propose a conditional scheme to generate entangled two-photons generalized binomial states inside two separate single-mode high-Q cavities. This scheme requires that the two cavities are initially prepared in entangled one-photon generalized binomial states and exploits the passage of two appropriately prepared two-level atoms one in each cavity. The measurement of the ground state of both atoms is finally required when they exit the cavities. We also give a brief evaluation of the experimental feasibility of the scheme.
We demonstrate an optical-fiber based source of polarization entangled photon-pairs with improved quality and efficiency, which has been integrated with off-the-shelf telecom components and is, therefore, well suited for quantum communication applications in the 1550 nm telecom band. Polarization entanglement is produced by simultaneously pumping a loop of standard dispersion-shifted fiber with two orthogonally-polarized pump pulses, one propagating in the clockwise and the other in the counter-clockwise direction. We characterize this source by investigating two-photon interference between th…