Search

The entangled photons are crucial resources for quantum communications and networking. Here, we present an ultra-bright polarization-entangled photon source based on a periodically poled lithium niobate waveguide designed for practical quantum communication networks. Using a 780 nm pump laser, the source achieves a pair generation rate of 2.4 $\times 10^{10}$ pairs/s/mW. This work has achieved a directly measured power of 17.9 nW in entangled photon generation with a 3.2 mW pump power. Based on this, we demonstrate the practicality of the source by conducting quantum key distribution experiments over long-distance fiber links, achieving the applicable secure key rates of up to 440.80 bits/s over 200 km with 62 dB loss and reaching a maximum secure key generation distance of 404 km. These results demonstrate the potential of wavelength-multiplexed polarization-entangled photon sources for high-speed, long-distance quantum communication, positioning them as key components for future large-scale quantum networks., Comment: 18 pages, 6 figures

Integrated photonics has reformed our information society by offering on-chip optical signal synthesis, processing and detection with reduced size, weight and power consumption. As such, it has been successfully established in the near-infrared (NIR) telecommunication bands. With the soaring demand in miniaturized systems for biosensing, quantum information and transportable atomic clocks, extensive endeavors have been stacked on translating integrated photonics into the visible spectrum, i.e. visible-light integrated photonics. Various innovative visible-light integrated devices have been demonstrated, such as lasers, frequency combs, and atom traps, highlighting the capacity and prospect to create chip-based optical atomic clocks that can make timing and frequency metrology ubiquitous. A pillar to the development of visible-light integrated photonics is characterization techniques featuring high frequency resolution and wide spectral coverage, which however remain elusive. Here, we demonstrate a vector spectrum analyzer (VSA) for visible-light integrated photonics, offering spectral bandwidth from 766 to 795 nm and frequency resolution of 415 kHz. The VSA is rooted on a widely chirping, high-power, narrow-linewidth, mode-hop-free laser around 780 nm, which is frequency-doubled from the near-infrared via an efficient, broadband CPLN waveguide. The VSA is further referenced to hyperfine structures of rubidium and potassium atoms, enabling 8.1 MHz frequency accuracy. We apply our VSA to showcase the characterization of loss, dispersion and phase response of passive integrated devices, as well as densely spaced spectra of mode-locked lasers. Combining operation in the NIR and visible spectra, our VSA allows characterization bandwidth exceeding an octave and can be an invaluable diagnostic tool for spectroscopy, nonlinear optical processing, imaging and quantum interfaces to atomic devices.

Towards realizing the future quantum internet, a pivotal milestone entails the transition from two-node proof-of-principle experiments conducted in laboratories to comprehensive, multi-node setups on large scales. Here, we report on the debut implementation of a multi-node entanglement-based quantum network over a metropolitan area. We equipped three quantum nodes with atomic quantum memories and their telecom interfaces, and combined them into a scalable phase-stabilized architecture through a server node. We demonstrated heralded entanglement generation between two quantum nodes situated 12.5 km apart, and the storage of entanglement exceeding the round-trip communication time. We also showed the concurrent entanglement generation on three links. Our work provides a metropolitan-scale testbed for the evaluation and exploration of multi-node quantum network protocols and starts a new stage of quantum internet research., Comment: 21 pages in total, 4 figures and 1 table in the main text, 5 figures and 8 tables in the supplementary material

In the past few years, the lithium niobate on insulator (LNOI) platform has revolutionized lithium niobate materials, and a series of quantum photonic chips based on LNOI have shown unprecedented performances. Quantum frequency conversion (QFC) photonic chips, which enable quantum state preservation during frequency tuning, are crucial in quantum technology. In this work, we demonstrate a low-noise QFC process on an LNOI nanophotonic platform designed to connect telecom and near-visible bands with sum-frequency generation by long-wavelength pumping. An internal conversion efficiency of 73% and an on-chip noise count rate of 900 counts per second (cps) are achieved. Moreover, the on-chip preservation of quantum statistical properties is verified, showing that the QFC chip is promising for extensive applications of LNOI integrated circuits in quantum information. Based on the QFC chip, we construct an upconversion single-photon detector with the sum-frequency output spectrally filtered and detected by a silicon single-photon avalanche photodiode, demonstrating the feasibility of an upconversion single-photon detector on-chip with a detection efficiency of 8.7% and a noise count rate of 300 cps. The realization of a low-noise QFC device paves the way for practical chip-scale QFC-based quantum systems in heterogeneous configurations., Comment: 8pages, 6 figures, 1 table

Quantum internet gives the promise of getting all quantum resources connected, and it will enable applications far beyond a localized scenario. A prototype is a network of quantum memories that are entangled and well separated. Previous realizations are limited in the distance. In this paper, we report the establishment of remote entanglement between two atomic quantum memories physically separated by 12.5 km directly in a metropolitan area. We create atom-photon entanglement in one node and send the photon to a second node for storage. We harness low-loss transmission through a field-deployed fiber of 20.5 km by making use of frequency down-conversion and up-conversion. The final memory-memory entanglement is verified to have a fidelity of 90% via retrieving to photons. Our experiment paves the way to study quantum network applications in a practical scenario., Comment: 9 pages in total, 4 figures in the main text, and 5 figures in the supplementary material

In the quest to realize a scalable quantum network, semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) offer distinct advantages including high single-photon efficiency and indistinguishability, high repetition rate (tens of GHz with Purcell enhancement), interconnectivity with spin qubits, and a scalable on-chip platform. However, in the past two decades, the visibility of quantum interference between independent QDs rarely went beyond the classical limit of 50$\%$ and the distances were limited from a few meters to kilometers. Here, we report quantum interference between two single photons from independent QDs separated by 302 km optical fiber. The single photons are generated from resonantly driven single QDs deterministically coupled to microcavities. Quantum frequency conversions are used to eliminate the QD inhomogeneity and shift the emission wavelength to the telecommunication band. The observed interference visibility is 0.67$\pm$0.02 (0.93$\pm$0.04) without (with) temporal filtering. Feasible improvements can further extend the distance to 600 km. Our work represents a key step to long-distance solid-state quantum networks., Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures

Non-line-of-sight (NLOS) imaging enables monitoring around corners and is promising for diverse applications. The resolution of transient NLOS imaging is limited to a centimeter scale, mainly by the temporal resolution of the detectors. Here, we construct an up-conversion single-photon detector with a high temporal resolution of ~1.4 ps and a low noise count rate of 5 counts per second (cps). Notably, the detector operates at room temperature, near-infrared wavelength. Using this detector, we demonstrate high-resolution and low-noise NLOS imaging. Our system can provide a 180 {\mu}m axial resolution and a 2 mm lateral resolution, which is more than one order of magnitude better than that in previous experiments. These results open avenues for high-resolution NLOS imaging techniques in relevant applications., Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures

Interferometers are widely used in imaging technologies to achieve enhanced spatial resolution, but require that the incoming photons be indistinguishable. In previous work, we built and analyzed color erasure detectors which expand the scope of intensity interferometry to accommodate sources of different colors. Here we experimentally demonstrate how color erasure detectors can achieve improved spatial resolution in an imaging task, well beyond the diffraction limit. Utilizing two 10.9 mm-aperture telescopes and a 0.8 m baseline, we measure the distance between a 1063.6 nm source and a 1064.4 nm source separated by 4.2 mm at a distance of 1.43 km, which surpasses the diffraction limit of a single telescope by about 40 times. Moreover, chromatic intensity interferometry allows us to recover the phase of the Fourier transform of the imaged objects - a quantity that is, in the presence of modest noise, inaccessible to conventional intensity interferometry., Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures

Quantum computing and quantum communication, have been greatly developed in recent years and expected to contribute to quantum internet technologies, including cloud quantum computing and unconditionally secure communication. However, long-distance quantum communication is challenging mainly because of optical fiber losses; quantum repeaters are indispensable for fiber-based transmission because unknown quantum states cannot be amplified with certainty. In this study, we demonstrate a versatile entanglement source in the telecom band for fiber-based quantum internet, which has a narrow linewidth of sub-MHz range, entanglement fidelity of more than 95%, and Bell-state generation even with frequency multimode. Furthermore, after a total distribution length of 20-km in fiber, two-photon correlation is observed with an easily identifiable normalized correlation coefficient, despite the limited bandwidth of the wavelength converter. The presented implementation promises an efficient method for entanglement distribution that is compatible with quantum memory and frequency-multiplexed long-distance quantum communication applications.

By developing a `two-crystal' method for color erasure, we can broaden the scope of chromatic interferometry to include optical photons whose frequency difference falls outside of the 400 nm to 4500 nm wavelength range, which is the passband of a PPLN crystal. We demonstrate this possibility experimentally, by observing interference patterns between sources at 1064.4 nm and 1063.6 nm, corresponding to a frequency difference of about 200 GHz., Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures

Lithium niobate photonic chip could realize diverse optical engineering for various applications benefiting from its excellent optical performances. In this letter, we demonstrate monolithic photonic chips for multi-channel sum-frequency conversion based on reverse-proton-exchange periodically poled lithium niobate waveguides, with the different channels showing uniform and excellent conversion efficiencies. To obtain a robust device and provide a convenient interface for applications, the integrated chip is fiber coupled with two fiber arrays. The packaged chip then forms the core of a multi-channel up conversion single photon detector. In each channel the input signal interacts with a 1950-nm single frequency pump laser and the sum frequency output is spectrally filtered and detected by a silicon avalanche photodiode. Average detection efficiency (DE) of 23.2 % and noise count rate (NCR) of 557 counts per second (cps) are achieved, with a standard deviation of 2.73 % and 48 cps over the 30 channels, as well as optical isolation (OI) between nearby channels of more than 71 dB, which are excellent for the extensive applications of monolithic photonic chips in fields including deep space laser communication, high-rate quantum key distribution and single-photon imaging., Comment: 15 pages, 6 figures

By engineering and manipulating quantum entanglement between incoming photons and experimental apparatus, we construct single-photon detectors which cannot distinguish between photons of very different wavelengths. These color erasure detectors enable a new kind of intensity interferometry, with potential applications in microscopy and astronomy. We demonstrate chromatic interferometry experimentally, observing robust interference using both coherent and incoherent photon sources., Comment: 21 pages, 7 figures

Quantum internet will enable a number of revolutionary applications. It relies on entanglement of remote quantum memories over long distances. Despite enormous progresses so far, the maximal physical separation achieved between two nodes is 1.3 km, and challenges for long distance remain. Here we make a significant step forward by entangling two atomic ensembles in one lab via photon transmission through metropolitan-scale fibers. We use cavity enhancement to create bright atom-photon entanglement, and harness quantum frequency conversion to shift the atomic wavelength to telecom. We realize entanglement over 22 km field-deployed fibers via two-photon interference, and entanglement over 50 km coiled fibers via single-photon interference. Our experiment can be extended to physically separated nodes with similar distance as a functional segment for atomic quantum networks, thus paving the way towards establishing atomic entanglement over many nodes and over much longer distance.

We demonstrate a compact all-fiber polarization-independent up-conversion single-photon detector based on integrated reverse proton exchanged periodically poled lithium niobate waveguides. The horizontally and vertically polarized components of randomly polarized signals are separated with a fiber-coupled polarization beam splitter, launched into two orthogonally polarized polarization maintaining fibers and fetched into two adjacent independent waveguides on the same device. The up-converted outputs from both waveguide channels are then combined with a multi-mode fiber combiner and detected by a silicon detector. With this configuration, the polarization-independent single-photon counting at 1.55 um is achieved with a system detection efficiency of 29.3%, a dark count rate of 1600 counts per second, and a polarization dependent loss of 0.1dB. This compact all-fiber system is robust and has great application potential in practical quantum key distribution systems., Comment: 17pages, 4 figures

We demonstrate up-conversion single-photon detectors based on integrated periodically poled lithium niobate waveguides, which incorporate two mode filters and a directional coupler. The two mode filters are optimized for the fiber-waveguide coupling efficiencies for 1550 nm and 1950 nm respectively while the directional coupler plays the role of wavelength combiner, making the overall system portable and low-cost. The two wavelengths pump each other in our detection system. We achieve detection efficiencies of 28% for 1550 nm and 27% for 1950 nm, respectively. This scheme provides an efficient integrated single-photon detection method for any two well-separated spectral bands in the whole low-loss range of lithium niobate waveguides., Comment: 11pages, 6 figures

Based on the technique of periodically poled lithium niobate (PPLN) waveguide, up-conversion single-photon detection at 1.064-{\mu}m is demonstrated. We have achieved a system photon detection efficiency (DE) of 32.5% with a very low noise count rate (NCR) of 45 counts per second (cps) by pumping with a 1.55-{\mu}m-band single frequency laser using the long-wavelength pumping technique and exploiting volume Bragg grating (VBG) as a narrow band filter. Replacing the VBG with a combination of adequate dielectric filters, a DE of up to 38% with a NCR of 700 cps is achieved, making the overall system more stable and practical. The up-conversion single-photon detector (SPD) operating at 1.064 {\mu}m can be a promising robust counter and find usage in many fields., Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, 1 table

Up-conversion single photon detector (UCSPD) has been widely used in many research fields including quantum key distribution (QKD), lidar, optical time domain reflectrometry (OTDR) and deep space communication. For the first time in laboratory, we have developed an integrated four-channel all-fiber UCSPD which can work in both free-running and gate modes. This compact module can satisfy different experimental demands with adjustable detection efficiency and dark count. We have characterized the key parameters of the UCSPD system., Comment: 9 pages 5 figures

We demonstrate upconversion single-photon detection for the 1550-nm band using a PPLN waveguide, long-wavelength pump, and narrowband filtering using a volume Bragg grating. We achieve total-system detection efficiency of around 30% with noise at the dark-count level of a silicon APD. Based on the new detector, a single-pixel up-conversion infrared spectrometer with a noise equivalent power of -142 dBm was demonstrated, which was better than liquid nitrogen cooled InGaAs arrary., Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures

We study the elastic scattering of atomic argon by electron in the presence of a bichromatic laser field in the second Born approximation. The target atom is approximated by a simple screening potential and the continuum states of the impinging and emitting electrons are described as Volkov states. We evaluate the S-matrix elements numerically. The dependence of differential cross section on the relative phase between the two laser components is presented. The results obtained in the first and second Born approximation are compared and analysed., Comment: 3 figures