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Efficient generation and detection of indistinguishable twin photons are at the core of quantum information and communications technology (Q-ICT). These photons are conventionally generated by spontaneous parametric down conversion (SPDC), which is a probabilistic process, and hence occurs at a limited rate, which restricts wider applications of Q-ICT. To increase the rate, one had to excite SPDC by higher pump power, while it inevitably produced more unwanted multi-photon components, harmfully degrading quantum interference visibility. Here we solve this problem by using recently developed 10 GHz repetition-rate-tunable comb laser, combined with a group-velocity-matched nonlinear crystal, and superconducting nanowire single photon detectors. They operate at telecom wavelengths more efficiently with less noises than conventional schemes, those typically operate at visible and near infrared wavelengths generated by a 76 MHz Ti Sapphire laser and detected by Si detectors. We could show high interference visibilities, which are free from the pump-power induced degradation. Our laser, nonlinear crystal, and detectors constitute a powerful tool box, which will pave a way to implementing quantum photonics circuits with variety of good and low-cost telecom components, and will eventually realize scalable Q-ICT in optical infra-structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The NOON state, and its experimental approximation the Holland-Burnett state, have important applications in phase sensing measurement with enhanced sensitivity. However, most of the previous Holland-Burnett state interference (HBSI) experiments only investigated the area of the interference pattern in the region immediately around zero optical path length difference, while the full HBSI pattern over a wide range of optical path length differences has not yet been well explored. In this work, we experimentally and theoretically demonstrate up to six-photon HBSI and study the properties of the interference patterns over a wide range of optical path length differences. It was found that the shape, the coherence time and the visibility of the interference patterns were strongly dependent on the detection schemes. This work paves the way for applications which are based on the envelope of the HBSI pattern, such as quantum spectroscopy and quantum metrology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Entanglement swapping at telecom wavelengths is at the heart of quantum networking in optical fiber infrastructures. Although entanglement swapping has been demonstrated experimentally so far using various types of entangled photon sources both in near-infrared and telecom wavelength regions, the rate of swapping operation has been too low to be applied to practical quantum protocols, due to limited efficiency of entangled photon sources and photon detectors. Here we demonstrate drastic improvement of the efficiency at telecom wavelength by using two ultra-bright entangled photon sources and four highly efficient superconducting nanowire single photon detectors. We have attained a four-fold coincidence count rate of 108 counts per second, which is three orders higher than the previous experiments at telecom wavelengths. A raw (net) visibility in a Hong-Ou-Mandel interference between the two independent entangled sources was 73.3 ± 1.0% (85.1 ± 0.8%). We performed the teleportation and entanglement swapping, and obtained a fidelity of 76.3% in the swapping test. Our results on the coincidence count rates are comparable with the ones ever recorded in teleportation/swapping and multi-photon entanglement generation experiments at around 800 nm wavelengths. Our setup opens the way to practical implementation of device-independent quantum key distribution and its distance extension by the entanglement swapping as well as multi-photon entangled state generation in telecom band infrastructures with both space and fiber links. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Efficient generation and detection of indistinguishable twin photons are at the core of quantum information and communications technology (Q-ICT). These photons are conventionally generated by spontaneous parametric down conversion (SPDC), which is a probabilistic process, and hence occurs at a limited rate, which restricts wider applications of Q-ICT. To increase the rate, one had to excite SPDC by higher pump power, while it inevitably produced more unwanted multi-photon components, harmfully degrading quantum interference visibility. Here we solve this problem by using recently developed 10 GHz repetition-rate-tunable comb laser, combined with a group-velocity-matched nonlinear crystal, and superconducting nanowire single photon detectors. They operate at telecom wavelengths more efficiently with less noises than conventional schemes, those typically operate at visible and near infrared wavelengths generated by a 76 MHz Ti Sapphire laser and detected by Si detectors. We could show high interference visibilities, which are free from the pump-power induced degradation. Our laser, nonlinear crystal, and detectors constitute a powerful tool box, which will pave a way to implementing quantum photonics circuits with variety of good and low-cost telecom components, and will eventually realize scalable Q-ICT in optical infra-structures.