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We present a method to fabricate double shell structures printed in trans-versal directions using multi-axis fused-deposition-modeling (FDM) robot-ic 3D printing. Shell structures, characterized by lightweight, thin walls, fast buildup, and minimal material usage, find diverse applications in pro-totyping and architecture for uses such as fa\c{c}ade panels, molds for concrete casting, or full-scale pavilions. We leverage an underlying representation of transversal strip networks generated using existing methods and propose a methodology for converting them into printable partitions. Each partition is printed separately and assembled into a double-shell structure. We out-line the specifications and workflow that make the printing of each piece and the subsequent assembly process feasible. The versatility and robust-ness of our method are demonstrated with both digital and fabricated re-sults on surfaces of different scales and geometric complexity.

Developing quantum key distribution (QKD) systems using monolithic photonic integrated circuits (PICs) can accelerate their adoption by a wide range of markets, thanks to the potential reduction in size, complexity of the overall system, power consumption, and production cost. In this work, we design, fabricate and characterize an InP-based PIC transmitter for continuous-variable (CV) QKD applications. In a proof-of-principle experiment implementing a pulsed Gaussian-modulated coherent state (GMCS) CV-QKD protocol over an optical fiber channel of 11 km, the system showed a performance compatible with a secret key rate of 78 kbps in the asymptotic regime. These results show the potential of InP technologies to integrate CV-QKD systems onto a monolithic platform., Comment: 14 pages, 7 figures

Future quantum networks will be composed of both terrestrial links for metropolitan and continent-scale connections and space-based links for global coverage and infrastructure resilience. However, the propagation of quantum signals through the atmosphere is severely impacted by the effects of turbulence. This is even more the case for entanglement-based quantum communication protocols requiring two free-space channels to be considered simultaneously. In this work, we assess the advantage of turbulence mitigation by adaptive optics, in particular during daytime link operation, so as to increase the coupling of the received signal into an optical fiber. We show in particular that this improves the performance of entanglement-based quantum key distribution by up to a few hundred bits per second when compared with the uncorrected scenario

The surface ligands in colloidal metal halide perovskites influence not only their intrinsic optoelectronic properties but also their interaction with other materials and molecules. We explore donor-acceptor interactions of CsPbBr3 perovskite nanocrystals with TiO2 nanoparticles and nanotubes by replacing long-chain oleylamine ligands with short-chain butylamines. Through post-synthesis ligand exchange, we functionalize the nanocrystals with butylamine ligands while maintaining their intrinsic properties. In solution, butylamine-capped nanocrystals exhibit reduced photoluminescence intensity with increasing TiO2 concentration but without any change in photoluminescence lifetime. Intriguingly, the Stern-Volmer plot depicts different slopes at low and high TiO2 concentrations, suggesting mixed static and sphere-of-action quenching interactions. Oleylamine-capped nanocrystals in solution, on the other hand, show no interaction with TiO2, as indicated by consistent photoluminescence intensities and lifetimes before and after TiO2 addition. In films, both types exhibit decreased photoluminescence lifetime with TiO2, indicating enhanced donor-acceptor interactions, which are discussed in terms of trap state modification and electron transfer. TiO2 nanotubes enhance nonradiative recombination more in butylamine-capped CsPbBr3 perovskite nanocrystals, emphasizing the role of ligand chain length., Comment: 30 pages, 7 figures

Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) is a mature geophysical method that has gained increasing popularity in planetary science over the past decade. GPR has been utilised both for Lunar and Martian missions providing pivotal information regarding the near surface geology of Terrestrial planets. Within that context, numerous processing pipelines have been suggested to address the unique challenges present in planetary setups. These processing pipelines often require manual tuning resulting to ambiguous outputs open to non-unique interpretations. These pitfalls combined with the large number of planetary GPR data (kilometers in magnitude), highlight the necessity for automatic, objective and advanced processing and interpretation schemes. The current paper investigates the potential of deep learning for interpreting and processing GPR data. The one-shot multi-offset configuration is investigated via a coherent numerical case study, showcasing the potential of deep learning for A) reconstructing the dielectric distribution of the the near surface of Terrestrial planets, and B) filling missing or bad-quality traces. Special care was taken for the numerical data to be both realistic and challenging. Moreover, the generated synthetic data are properly labelled and made publicly available for training future data-driven pipelines and contributing towards developing pre-trained foundation models for GPR.

The exploration of the concept of nonlocality beyond standard Bell scenarios in quantum network architectures unveils fundamentally new forms of correlations that hold a strong potential for future applications of quantum communication networks. To materialize this potential, it is necessary to adapt theoretical advances to realistic configurations. Here we consider a quantum triangle network, for which is was shown in theory that, remarkably, quantum nonlocality without inputs can be demonstrated for sources with an arbitrarily small level of independence. We realize experimentally such correlated sources by carefully engineering the output state of a single AlGaAs multiplexed entangled-photon source, exploiting energy-matched channels cut in its broad spectrum. This simulated triangle network is then used to violate experimentally for the first time a Bell-like inequality that we derive to capture the effect of noise in the correlations present in our system. We also rigorously validate our findings by analysing the mutual information between the generated states. Our results allow us to deepen our understanding of network nonlocality while also pushing its practical relevance for quantum communication networks.

The certification of quantum resources is a critical tool in the development of quantum information processing. In particular, quantum state verification is a fundamental building block for communication and computation applications, determining whether the involved parties can trust the resources at hand or whether the application should be aborted. Self-testing methods have been used to tackle such verification tasks in a device-independent (DI) setting. However, these approaches commonly consider the limit of large (asymptotic), identically and independently distributed (IID) samples, which weakens the DI claim and poses serious challenges to their experimental implementation. Here we overcome these challenges by adopting a theoretical protocol enabling the certification of quantum states in the few-copies and non-IID regime and by leveraging a high-fidelity multipartite entangled photon source. This allows us to show the efficient and device-independent certification of a single copy of a four-qubit GHZ state that can readily be used for the robust and reliable implementation of quantum information tasks.

Multipartite entangled states are an essential building block for advanced quantum networking applications. Realizing such tasks in practice puts stringent requirements on the characteristics of the states in terms of fidelity and generation rate, along with a desired compatibility with telecommunication network deployment. Here, we demonstrate a photonic platform design capable of producing high-fidelity Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) states, at telecom wavelength and in a compact and scalable configuration. Our source relies on spontaneous parametric down-conversion in a layered Sagnac interferometer, which only requires a single nonlinear crystal. This enables the generation of highly indistinguishable photon pairs, leading by entanglement fusion to four-qubit polarization-entangled GHZ states with fidelity up to $(94.73 \pm 0.21)\%$ with respect to the ideal state, at a rate of 1.7Hz. We provide a complete characterization of our source and highlight its suitability for practical quantum network applications.

We present a new simulation-secure quantum oblivious transfer (QOT) protocol based on one-way functions in the plain model. With a focus on practical implementation, our protocol surpasses prior works in efficiency, promising feasible experimental realization. We address potential experimental errors and their correction, offering analytical expressions to facilitate the analysis of the required quantum resources. Technically, we achieve simulation security for QOT through an equivocal and relaxed-extractable quantum bit commitment., Comment: 29 pages

Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) enables secret key exchange between two remote parties with information-theoretic security rooted in the laws of quantum physics. Encoding key information in continuous variables (CV), such as the values of quadrature components of coherent states of light, brings implementations much closer to standard optical communication systems, but this comes at the price of significant complexity in the digital signal processing techniques required for operation at low signal-to-noise ratios. In this work, we wish to lower the barriers to entry for CV-QKD experiments associated to this difficulty by providing a highly modular, open source software that is in principle hardware agnostic and can be used in multiple configurations. We benchmarked this software, called QOSST, using an experimental setup with a locally generated local oscillator, frequency multiplexed pilots and RF-heterodyne detection, and obtained state-of-the-art secret key rates of the order of Mbit/s over metropolitan distances at the asymptotic limit. We hope that QOSST can be used to stimulate further experimental advances in CV-QKD and be improved and extended by the community to achieve high performance in a wide variety of configurations., Comment: 15 pages, 8 figures; Corrected names in metadata and file; Added acceptance date in quantum

Nonlocal games play a crucial role in quantum information theory and have numerous applications in certification and cryptographic protocols. Kalai et al. (STOC 2023) introduced a procedure to compile a nonlocal game into a single-prover interactive proof, using a quantum homomorphic encryption scheme, and showed that their compilation method preserves the classical bound of the game. Natarajan and Zhang (FOCS 2023) then showed that the quantum bound is preserved for the specific case of the CHSH game. Extending the proof techniques of Natarajan and Zhang, we show that the compilation procedure of Kalai et al. preserves the quantum bound for two classes of games: XOR games and d-outcome CHSH games. We also establish that, for any pair of qubit measurements, there exists an XOR game such that its optimal winning probability serves as a self-test for that particular pair of measurements., Comment: 22 pages, new result added and corrected typos

In this paper we evaluated the performance of a reconfigurable intelligent surface tested with a fifth generation signal provided by a commercial fifth generation base station. We adopted a reverberation chamber as a real life propagating environment. Tests were conducted at the millimeter wave frequency range. This measurement campaign was carried out under the H2020 European project RISE-6G and a collaboration program between TIM S.p.A., Nokia and Universit\`a Politecnica delle Marche., Comment: Accepted at EuCAP 2024

Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) is a prominent application in the field of quantum cryptography providing information-theoretic security for secret key exchange. The implementation of QKD systems on photonic integrated circuits (PICs) can reduce the size and cost of such systems and facilitate their deployment in practical infrastructures. To this end, continuous-variable (CV) QKD systems are particularly well-suited as they do not require single-photon detectors, whose integration is presently challenging. Here we present a CV-QKD receiver based on a silicon PIC capable of performing balanced detection. We characterize its performance in a laboratory QKD setup using a frequency multiplexed pilot scheme with specifically designed data processing allowing for high modulation and secret key rates. The obtained excess noise values are compatible with asymptotic secret key rates of 2.4 Mbit/s and 220 kbit/s at an emulated distance of 10 km and 23 km, respectively. These results demonstrate the potential of this technology towards fully integrated devices suitable for high-speed, metropolitan-distance secure communication., Comment: 11 pages, 13 figures; Changed figure 8, acknowledgments updated

Strip-decomposable quadrilateral (SDQ) meshes, i.e., quad meshes that can be decomposed into two transversal strip networks, are vital in numerous fabrication processes; examples include woven structures, surfaces from sheets, custom rebar, or cable-net structures. However, their design is often challenging and includes tedious manual work, and there is a lack of methodologies for editing such meshes while preserving their strip decomposability. We present an interactive methodology to generate and edit SDQ meshes aligned to user-defined directions, while also incorporating desirable properties to the strips for fabrication. Our technique is based on the computation of two coupled transversal tangent direction fields, integrated into two overlapping networks of strips on the surface. As a case study, we consider the fabrication scenario of robotic non-planar 3D printing of freefrom shell surfaces and apply the presented methodology to design and fabricate non-planar print paths.

We present and analyse an architecture for a European-scale quantum network using satellite links to connect Quantum Cities, which are metropolitan quantum networks with minimal hardware requirements for the end users. Using NetSquid, a quantum network simulation tool based on discrete events, we assess and benchmark the performance of such a network linking distant locations in Europe in terms of quantum key distribution rates, considering realistic parameters for currently available or near-term technology. Our results highlight the key parameters and the limits of current satellite quantum communication links and can be used to assist the design of future missions. We also discuss the possibility of using high-altitude balloons as an alternative to satellites.

Continuous variable encoding of quantum information requires the deterministic generation of highly correlated quantum states of light in the form of quantum networks, which, in turn, necessitates the controlled generation of a large number of squeezed modes. In this work, we present an experimental source of multimode squeezed states of light at telecommunication wavelengths. Generation at such wavelengths is especially important as it can enable quantum information processing, communication, and sensing beyond the laboratory scale. We use a single-pass spontaneous parametric down-conversion process in a non-linear waveguide pumped with the second harmonic of a femtosecond laser. Our measurements reveal significant squeezing in more than 21 frequency modes, with a maximum squeezing value exceeding 2.5 dB. We demonstrate multiparty entanglement by measuring the state's covariance matrix. Finally, we show the source reconfigurability by preparing few-node cluster states and measure their nullifier squeezing level. These results pave the way for a scalable implementation of continuous variable quantum information protocols at telecommunication wavelengths, particularly for multiparty, entanglement-based quantum communications. Moreover, the source is compatible with additional pulse-by-pulse multiplexing, which can be utilized to construct the necessary three-dimensional entangled structures for quantum computing protocols.

We introduce ViDaS, a two-stream, fully convolutional Video, Depth-Aware Saliency network to address the problem of attention modeling ``in-the-wild", via saliency prediction in videos. Contrary to existing visual saliency approaches using only RGB frames as input, our network employs also depth as an additional modality. The network consists of two visual streams, one for the RGB frames, and one for the depth frames. Both streams follow an encoder-decoder approach and are fused to obtain a final saliency map. The network is trained end-to-end and is evaluated in a variety of different databases with eye-tracking data, containing a wide range of video content. Although the publicly available datasets do not contain depth, we estimate it using three different state-of-the-art methods, to enable comparisons and a deeper insight. Our method outperforms in most cases state-of-the-art models and our RGB-only variant, which indicates that depth can be beneficial to accurately estimating saliency in videos displayed on a 2D screen. Depth has been widely used to assist salient object detection problems, where it has been proven to be very beneficial. Our problem though differs significantly from salient object detection, since it is not restricted to specific salient objects, but predicts human attention in a more general aspect. These two problems not only have different objectives, but also different ground truth data and evaluation metrics. To our best knowledge, this is the first competitive deep learning video saliency estimation approach that combines both RGB and Depth features to address the general problem of saliency estimation ``in-the-wild". The code will be publicly released.

Quantum transmission links are central elements in essentially all protocols involving the exchange of quantum messages. Emerging progress in quantum technologies involving such links needs to be accompanied by appropriate certification tools. In adversarial scenarios, a certification method can be vulnerable to attacks if too much trust is placed on the underlying system. Here, we propose a protocol in a device independent framework, which allows for the certification of practical quantum transmission links in scenarios where minimal assumptions are made about the functioning of the certification setup. In particular, we take unavoidable transmission losses into account by modeling the link as a completely-positive trace-decreasing map. We also, crucially, remove the assumption of independent and identically distributed samples, which is known to be incompatible with adversarial settings. Finally, in view of the use of the certified transmitted states for follow-up applications, our protocol moves beyond certification of the channel to allow us to estimate the quality of the transmitted quantum message itself. To illustrate the practical relevance and the feasibility of our protocol with currently available technology we provide an experimental implementation based on a state-of-the-art polarization entangled photon pair source in a Sagnac configuration and analyze its robustness for realistic losses and errors., Comment: 35 pages, 14 figures

The performance of a real fifth generation base station was studied by using a reverberation chamber as a real life propagating environment. Preliminary tests were conducted in order to define 5G base station operation conditions at mm-wave and emulated scenarios where reconfigurable intelligent surface(s) (RISs) will successively be tested. Measurements campaign was carried out under the H2020 European project RISE-6G and a collaboration program between TIM S.p.A., Nokia and Universita` Politecnica delle Marche., Comment: Accepted in EuCAP 2023

As in modern communication networks, the security of quantum networks will rely on complex cryptographic tasks that are based on a handful of fundamental primitives. Weak coin flipping (WCF) is a significant such primitive which allows two mistrustful parties to agree on a random bit while they favor opposite outcomes. Remarkably, perfect information-theoretic security can be achieved in principle for quantum WCF. Here, we overcome conceptual and practical issues that have prevented the experimental demonstration of this primitive to date, and demonstrate how quantum resources can provide cheat sensitivity, whereby each party can detect a cheating opponent, and an honest party is never sanctioned. Such a property is not known to be classically achievable with information-theoretic security. Our experiment implements a refined, loss-tolerant version of a recently proposed theoretical protocol and exploits heralded single photons generated by spontaneous parametric down conversion, a carefully optimized linear optical interferometer including beam splitters with variable reflectivities and a fast optical switch for the verification step. High values of our protocol benchmarks are maintained for attenuation corresponding to several kilometers of telecom optical fiber., Comment: 17 pages, 9 figures

We present the architecture and analyze the applications of a metropolitan-scale quantum network that requires only limited hardware resources for end users. Using NetSquid, a quantum network simulation tool based on discrete events, we assess the performance of several quantum network protocols involving two or more users in various configurations in terms of topology, hardware and trust choices. Our analysis takes losses and errors into account and considers realistic parameters corresponding to present or near-term technology. Our results show that practical quantum-enhanced network functionalities are within reach today and can prepare the ground for further applications when more advanced technology becomes available.

A recently published patent (https://www.ipo.gov.uk/p-ipsum/Case/PublicationNumber/GB2590064) has claimed the development of a novel quantum key distribution protocol purporting to achieve long-range quantum security without trusted nodes and without use of quantum repeaters. Here we present a straightforward analysis of this claim, and reach the conclusion that it is largely unfounded., Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures and 1 table