It has long been known that quantum networks will enable a whole new range of communication tasks to be undertaken. The simplest is quantum key distribution (QKD) and are commercially available but currently only operate securely over distances around 100 km. A significant advance has been the development of mdiQKD, a scheme where Alice and Bob send one photon at a time to an intermediate node where a Bell measurement is performed. This Bell measurement can only succeed when both Alice and Bob photons arrive at the same time and so the key rate is limited by the exponential losses in both fibres. It limits the practical distance keys can be generated to less than 400km. Spatial or temporal multiplexing is a natural solution to this where one stores the photons that independently arrive from Alice and Bob. Only when the immediate node has both does it perform the Bell measurement. This means we are effectively only limited by fibres losses in one half of the channel. It however means one requires quantum memories at this immediate node, a technically challenging feat and one that changes the general resources used in QKD schemes. In our spatial multiplexed approach, we propose the use of an “all photonic non-destructive measurement (QND)” to herald whether the photon has arrived successfully from either Alice or Bob. Optical switches can them be used to route these photons to the Bell measurement, meaning that we are only limited by the channel loss between either Alice and the immediate node or Bob and the intermediate node, but not both. Further this can achieved without the use of quantum memories at all. Only optical switches, single-photon sources, photon detectors, and passive feed-forward techniques are required. Our approach can be applied naturally to entanglement distribution and so has applications beyond QKD.

Most quantum communication protocols like BB84 use non-orthogonal basis sets composed of orthogonal states, where an eavesdropper can access only 50% of the sender’s information. Thus, the overall eavesdropping rate becomes 25%, due to the same access rate of the receiver. This high error rate in a quantum channel provides an “Attack” sign to the system. However, the 25% attack to the quantum channel can no longer be effective if Eve can measure one conjugate variable without disturbing the other. Recently, such direct measurement techniques have been presented, and then most quantum communication protocols will be endangered eventually. Here we propose a direct measurement independent quantum communication (MIQC) protocol belongs to quantum secure direct communication (QSDC) systems. QSDC mostly relies on quantum entanglement and memories for direct message transfer, but it is more vulnerable due to direct information loss to Eve. Moreover, those QSDC protocols are not easy to implement and will become no longer of use if a direct measurement becomes possible. Our MIQC uses four conjugate variables composed of polarization and phase. To satisfy the measurement independence, we added two phase bases to the polarization-superposed single photons, where the phase selection is for random choices of spatially distinct quantum channels. Thus, Eve cannot know which path is chosen even if she can perfectly measure the encoded photon’s state. In our MIQC, Eve’s attack rate drops down to less than 1%, showing a measurement independent quantum communication protocol applicable to direct secure message transfers.

We present new quantum repeater architectures based on optical modules with NV diamond centers to highlight how physical properties of these optical modules change the operations, performance and limitations of the quantum repeater systems.We focus on two different approaches to construct optical modules, and see how the properties of modules propagate to the total system. The first approach to construct the optical module is to utilize the conditional refection dependent on the electron state of the single NV center in the cavity, and the other approach is to use absorption induced teleportation from an incoming photon to the nuclear spin of the NV center. To characterize a quantum repeater system, the processes and protocols associated with photons are important.As photons are not reliable as an information carrier, i.e. quantum manipulations associated with photons are not deterministic, and the protocols and manipulations rely on post-selection to keep the fidelity of the quantum information.Post-selection is essential in quantum communications based on photons to maintain the fidelity of the communication, however it restricts the architecture of the system to be tolerant to probabilistic gates. This factor is cost intensive and is the key for the architectures to be scalable.We show that the details of how the scalability of the architectures can be affected by physical parameters of the modules.

Various types of randomizations for the quantum stream cipher by Y00 protocol have been developed so far. In particular, it must be noted that the analysis of immunity against correlation attacks with a new type of randomization by Hirota and Kurosawa prompted a new look at the quantum stream cipher by Y00 protocol (Quant. Inform. Process. 6(2) 2007). From the preceding study on the quantum stream cipher, we recognized that the quantum stream cipher by Y00 protocol would be able to be generalized to a new type of physical cipher that has potential to exceed the Shannon limit by installing additional randomization mechanisms, in accordance with the law of quantum mechanics. We call this new type of physical random cipher the quantum enigma cipher. In this article, we introduce the recent developments for the quantum stream cipher by Y00 protocol and future plans toward the quantum enigma cipher.

The distribution of quantum entanglement appears to be an important component of applications of quantum communications and networks. The ability to centralize the sourcing of entanglement in a quantum network can provide for improved efficiency and enable a variety of network structures. A necessary feature of an entanglement-sourcing network node comprising several sources of entangled photons is the ability to reconfigurably route the generated pairs of photons to network neighbors depending on the desired entanglement sharing of the network users at a given time. One approach to such routing is the use of a photonic switching network. The requirements for an entanglement distribution switching network are less restrictive than for typical conventional applications, leading to design freedom that can be leveraged to optimize additional criteria. In this paper, we present a mathematical framework defining the requirements of an entanglement-distribution switching network. We then consider the design of such a switching network using a number of 2 × 2 crossbar switches, addressing the interconnection of these switches and efficient routing algorithms. In particular, we define a worst-case loss metric and consider 6 × 6, 8 × 8, and 10 × 10 network designs that optimize both this metric and the number of crossbar switches composing the network. We pay particular attention to the 10 × 10 network, detailing novel results proving the optimality of the proposed design. These optimized network designs have great potential for use in practical quantum networks, thus advancing the concept of quantum networks toward reality.

Temporal imaging is a technique that enables manipulation of temporal optical signals in a manner similar to manipulation of optical images in spatial domain. It uses the notion of space-time duality with dispersion phenomena playing the role of diffraction and quadratic phase modulation in time acting as a time lens. In this work we address the problem of temporal imaging of a temporally broadband squeezed light generated by a traveling-wave optical parametric amplifier or a similar device. We consider a single-lens temporal imaging system formed by two dispersive elements and a parametric temporal lens, based on a sum-frequency generation process. We derive a unitary transformation of the field operators performed by this kind of time lens. We evaluate the squeezing spectrum at the output of the single-lens imaging system and find the conditions preserving squeezing in the output field. When the efficiency factor of the temporal lens is smaller than unity, the vacuum fluctuations deteriorate squeezing at its output. For efficiency close to unity, when certain imaging conditions are satisfied, the squeezing spectrum at the output of the imaging system will be the same as that at the output of the OPA. This scheme gives the possibility of matching the coherence time of the broadband squeezed light to the response time of the photodetector. We finally discuss a temporal imaging scheme which allows to partially compensating the frequency dispersion of the OPA.

We report on the performance of a compact photon pair source that was retrieved from a failed space launch. The source had been installed in a nanosatellite and was found to be completely operational upon recovery. Comparison of post-recovery and baseline data suggests that there is no degradation in brightness or polarization correlation between photon pairs. We describe the assembly technique for the robust source. Its survival provides strong evidence that it is possible to design rugged quantum optical systems.

Quantum information science addresses how the storage, processing, and transmission of information are affected by uniquely quantum mechanical phenomena, such as superposition and entanglement. New technologies that harness these quantum effects are beginning to be realized in the areas of communication, information processing and precision measurement. For the realization of a universal gate set, by which, in principle, any quantum information task can be realized, two-qubit gates have been demonstrated and have been used to realize small-scale quantum circuits. However, scalability is becoming a critical problem. It may therefore be helpful to consider the use of three-qubit gates, which can simplify the structure of quantum circuits dramatically. Although both the controlled-SWAP (CSWAP) gate (also called Fredkin gate) and the controlled-controlled-NOT gate (also called Toffoli gate) are representative three-qubit gates, the Fredkin gates can be directly applied to many important quantum information protocols, e.g., error correction, fingerprinting, optimal cloning, and controlled entanglement filtering. Here we report a realization of the Fredkin gate using a photonic quantum circuit, following the theoretical proposal by Fiurasek. We achieve a fidelity of 0.85 for the classical truth table of CSWAP operation and an output state fidelity of 0.81 for a generated 3-photon Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) state. We also confirmed that the gate is capable of genuine tripartite entanglement with a quantum coherence corresponding to a visibility of 0.69 for three-photon interferences. From these results, we estimate a process fidelity of 0.77, which indicates that our Fredkin gate can be applied to various quantum tasks.

Heralded single photon sources (HSPS) using spontaneous parametric down conversion (SPDC) are widely used in photonic quantum information. However, the excess-photon pair generation in SPDC process is a problem, which results in the events where more than two photons exist in a pulse. Such excess photons degrade the visibility (V) of two-photon Hong-Ou-Mandel interference, and are one of the main error causes in the advanced linear optics photonic circuits. Recently, we have developed a novel HSPS which combines two methods to suppress such excess photon numbers. The first method (A) is to use multiple SPDC sources in one HSPS, where upon the detection of the idler photon from one of the source, the corresponding signal photon is output. The second method (B) is to use cascaded detectors to monitor the photon-pair number generated from the source, where the detector distinguish the single-pair generation from multi-pair generation and thus the excess-photon generation can be suppressed. In this presentation, we report the theoretical calculations how such a source can improve the visibility for a two photon interference. For example, when the average number of pairs from SPDC in a pulse is 0.1, and the detection efficiency is 70%, V= 83.2% for a conventional HSPS. V is improved to 90.3%, 87.1% and 92.7% by using method A, B and our hybrid approach, respectively.

Quantum measurement is based on the interaction between a quantum object and a meter entangled with the object. While information about the object is being extracted by the interaction, the quantum fluctuations of the object are imprinted onto the meter as a form of decoherence. Here, we study the nondestructive reconstruction of the photon number in an optical cavity, harnessing the quantum decoherence. We consider a single ⁴⁰Ca⁺ ion that is dispersively coupled to a high-finesse cavity. While the cavity is populated with weak coherent states, Ramsey spectroscopy is performed on the qubit transition to identify the shift and the broadening of the atomic energy levels. The shift is due to the ac Stark effect induced by cavity photons, and the broadening is attributed to the photon-number fluctuations of the cavity field. We show theoretically that photon-number distributions of the intracavity fields can be reconstructed in a basis of up to eleven Fock states with the maximum likelihood method. Furthermore, we show that the photon number of each polarization component can also be reconstructed, taking advantage of the rich energy-level structure of the ion. In combination with currently available mirror-coating technology, quantum non-demolition (QND) measurement of cavity photons will make it possible to create and manipulate nonclassical cavity-field states in the optical domain.

Harnessing entanglement as a resource is the main workhorse of many quantum protocols, and establishing the degree of quantum correlations of quantum states is an important certification process that has to take place prior to any implementations of these quantum protocols. The emergence of photodetectors known as photon-number-resolving detectors (PNRDs) that allow for accounting of photon numbers simultaneously arriving at the detectors has led to the need for modeling accurately and applying them for use in the certification process. Here we study the variance of difference of photocounts (VDP) of two PNRDs, which is one measure of quantum correlations, under the effects of loss and saturation. We found that it would be possible to distinguish between the classical correlation of a two-mode coherent state and the quantum correlation of a twin-beam state within some photo count regime of the detector. We compare the behavior of two such PNRDs. The first for which the photocount statistics follow a binomial distribution accounting for losses, and the second is that of Agarwal, Vogel, and Sperling for which the incident beam is first split and then separately measured by ON/OFF detectors. In our calculations, analytical expressions are derived for the variance of difference where possible. In these cases, Gauss' hypergeometric function appears regularly, giving an insight to the type of quantum statistics the photon counting gives in these PNRDs. The different mechanisms of the two types of PNRDs leads to quantitative differences in their VDP.

We analyze in detail a system of two interferometers aimed at the detection of extremely faint phase fluctuations. The idea behind is that a correlated phase-signal like the one predicted by some phenomenological theory of Quantum Gravity (QG) could emerge by correlating the output ports of the interferometers, even when in the single interferometer it confounds with the background. We demonstrated that injecting quantum light in the free ports of the interferometers can reduce the photon noise of the system beyond the shot-noise, enhancing the resolution in the phase-correlation estimation. Our results confirm the benefit of using squeezed beams together with strong coherent beams in interferometry, even in this correlated case. On the other hand, our results concerning the possible use of photon number entanglement in twin beam state pave the way to interesting and probably unexplored areas of application of bipartite entanglement and, in particular, the possibility of reaching surprising uncertainty reduction exploiting new interferometric configurations, as in the case of the system described here.

In the last years we have operated two very similar ultrafast photon counting photometers (Iqueye and Aqueye+) on different telescopes. The absolute time accuracy in time tagging the detected photon with these instruments is of the order of 500 ps for hours of observation, allowing us to obtain, for example, the most accurate ever light curve in visible light of the optical pulsars. Recently we adapted the two photometers for working together on two telescopes at Asiago (Italy), for realizing an Hanbury-Brown and Twiss Intensity Interferometry like experiment with two 3.9 km distant telescopes. In this paper we report about the status of the activity and on the very preliminary results of our first attempt to measure the photon intensity correlation.

Quantum-enhanced metrology aims to estimate an unknown parameter such that the precision scales better than the shot-noise bound. Single-shot adaptive quantum-enhanced metrology (AQEM) is a promising approach that uses feedback to tweak the quantum process according to previous measurement outcomes. Techniques and formalism for the adaptive case are quite different from the usual non-adaptive quantum metrology approach due to the causal relationship between measurements and outcomes. We construct a formal framework for AQEM by modeling the procedure as a decision-making process, and we derive the imprecision and the Cram´er- Rao lower bound with explicit dependence on the feedback policy. We also explain the reinforcement learning approach for generating quantum control policies, which is adopted due to the optimal policy being non-trivial to devise. Applying a learning algorithm based on differential evolution enables us to attain imprecision for adaptive interferometric phase estimation, which turns out to be SQL when non-entangled particles are used in the scheme.

We present a source for which multiple spontaneous four-wave mixing (SFWM) processes are supported in a few mode birefringent fiber, each process associated with a particular combination of transverse modes for the four participating waves. Within the weakly guiding regime, for which the propagation modes may be well approximated by linearly polarized (LP) modes, the departure from circular symmetry due to the fiber birefringence translates into orbital angular momentum (OAM) and parity conservation rules, i.e. reflecting elements from both azimuthal and rectangular symmetries. In our source: i) each process is group-velocity-matched so that it is, by design, nearly-factorable, and ii) the spectral separation between neighboring processes is greater than the marginal spectral width of each process. Consequently, there is a direct correspondence between the joint amplitude of each process and each of the Schmidt mode pairs of the overall two-photon state. The present paper covers work presented in Refs.¹ and.²

Quantum Optical Coherence Tomography can achieve a greater image resolution compared to its classical counterpart, due to the entanglement of the photon pairs. Following the idea that higher the number of entangled photons, higher the resolution, we study the physical underpinnings that appear when using photon triplets. Unlike the usual Hong-Ou-Mandel interferometer used for QOCT, a much simpler implementation in the form of a Michelson interferometer is used in this work. We find that axial resolution can be improved by a factor of four. Additionally, we provide the numerical method to reconstruct the image given the triple coincidence rate.

I will discuss various methods via which the transmission characteristics of optical quantum channels can be enhanced via the manipulation of continuous variables of the optical system. These methods will range from simple post-selection protocols through to quantum repeaters. In the most general cases the channel is improved with respect to the transmission of arbitrary quantum states - i.e. the quantum information encoding protocol; discrete, continuous or hybrid, is unrestricted. As well as theoretical results I will discuss new experimental demonstrations.

The nonlocal correlations between quantum states in an entangled system are essential to many quantum communications applications. A basic quantum operation, which permits the distribution of entanglement between two initially uncorrelated systems, is entanglement swapping. Here we present a rigorous formulation of entanglement swapping of any two partially mixed two-qubit states without limiting ourselves to any specific type of state or noise. Further, for two important classes of the input states, Bell diagonal and pure states, we describe how the concurrence of the final state is related to the concurrence of the initial states. First, we consider Bell diagonal states, and find bounds on the concurrence of the final state in terms of the concurrences of the initial states. These bounds are important for communications applications because polarization mode dispersion in fibers produces Bell diagonal states up to a local unitary rotation. Second, we show that swapping pure states occasionally results in a state of higher concurrence than either of the initial states. In addition, we find that two pure states are most likely to be capable of swapping to a state of increased concurrence when the two initial states have similar concurrences. Our analysis offers a completely general framework for investigating the behavior of any pair of two-qubit states when used for entanglement swapping.

In quantum optics experiments, heralding, a form of conditional state preparation, is a useful tool for creating photon-number states from nonlinear optical sources for quantum-information science experiments. Heralding occurs when one photon from a correlated pair is detected to herald the presence of the other photon, labeled the signal photon. However, as heralding is extended to two or more photon pairs, the presence of noise photons in the herald channel quickly degrades the photon statistics of the signal photons. We create two-photon number states from a non-degenerate, third-order nonlinear optical fiber source with double heralding and present a method for verifying these photon-number states. The consequences of noisy heralding on the statistics of states created via third-order nonlinear processes are analyzed. We present a method for estimating the effects of noise photons on the signal photon statistics. Additionally, we prove the equivalence between noise in the herald channel and a loss in the signal channel. We utilize this equivalence to infer the photon statistics of the photon-number states in the signal channel that would be present in the absence of noise in the herald channel. By measuring the statistics of the signal channels with noise in the herald channel and comparing to the inferred, noise-free distribution, we can estimate the potential benefits of additional noise-reducing procedures on the experiment.

For protecting physical layer of optical fiber communication systems, quantum stream cipher called Y-00 and Alpha-Eta is promising. So far, we demonstrated secure and high speed optical fiber communication experiments using Y-00 quantum stream cipher. Our theoretical research revealed that the randomization techniques could enhance the security performance. In this work, we fabricated a novel Y-00 transceiver for GbE where the randomization technique was implemented. The transceiver employed the optical intensity modulated Y-00 quantum stream cipher with intensity levels of 4096. An appropriately designed irregular mapping as the randomization technique was experimentally demonstrated. The transceiver was successfully applied to secure optical fiber transmission of GbE signals.

Quantum key distribution (QKD) allows for communication with security guaranteed by quantum theory. The main theoretical problem in QKD is to calculate the secret key rate for a given protocol. Analytical formulas are known for protocols with a high degree of symmetry, since symmetry simplifies the analysis. However, experimental imperfections break symmetries, hence the effect of imperfections on key rates is difficult to estimate. Furthermore, it is an interesting question whether (intentionally) asymmetric protocols could outperform symmetric ones. In this work, we develop a robust numerical approach for calculating the key rate for arbitrary discrete-variable QKD protocols. This will allow researchers to study “unstructured” protocols, i.e., those that lack symmetry. Our approach relies on transforming the key rate calculation to the dual optimization problem, which dramatically reduces the number of parameters and hence the calculation time. We illustrate our method, first, by reproducing known literature results for some famous QKD protocols and, second, by investigating some unstructured protocols for which the key rate was previously unknown. Ultimately our vision is to develop user-friendly software that will allow researchers to assess the performance of any QKD protocol simply by running a MATLAB script on their laptop computer. We have taken a step towards that goal by making the key rate calculation more time-efficient. Further details about our work can be found in the following preprint: http://arxiv.org/abs/1510.01294.

The main problem for information reconciliation in continuous variable Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) at low Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) is quantization and assignment of labels to the samples of the Gaussian Random Variables (RVs) observed at Alice and Bob. Trouble is that most of the samples, assuming that the Gaussian variable is zero mean which is de-facto the case, tend to have small magnitudes and are easily disturbed by noise. Transmission over longer and longer distances increases the losses corresponding to a lower effective SNR exasperating the problem. This paper looks at the quantization problem of the Gaussian samples at very low SNR regime from an information theoretic point of view. We look at the problem of two bit per sample quantization of the Gaussian RVs at Alice and Bob and derive expressions for the mutual information between the bit strings as a result of this quantization. The quantization threshold for the Most Significant Bit (MSB) should be chosen based on the maximization of the mutual information between the quantized bit strings. Furthermore, while the LSB string at Alice and Bob are balanced in a sense that their entropy is close to maximum, this is not the case for the second most significant bit even under optimal threshold. We show that with two bit quantization at SNR of -3 dB we achieve 75.8% of maximal achievable mutual information between Alice and Bob, hence, as the number of quantization bits increases beyond 2-bits, the number of additional useful bits that can be extracted for secret key generation decreases rapidly. Furthermore, the error rates between the bit strings at Alice and Bob at the same significant bit level are rather high demanding very powerful error correcting codes. While our calculations and simulation shows that the mutual information between the LSB at Alice and Bob is 0.1044 bits, that at the MSB level is only 0.035 bits. Hence, it is only by looking at the bits jointly that we are able to achieve a mutual information of 0.2217 bits which is 75.8% of maximum achievable. The implication is that only by coding both MSB and LSB jointly can we hope to get close to this 75.8% limit. Hence, non-binary codes are essential to achieve acceptable performance.

We present our approach for sharing photons and assessing resultant four-photon visibility between two distant parties using concatenated entanglement swapping. In addition we determine the corresponding key generation rate and the quantum bit-error rate. Our model is based on practical limitations of resources, including multipair parametric down-conversion sources, inefficient detectors with dark counts and lossy channels. Through this approach, we have found that a trade-off is needed between experimental run-time, pair-production rate and detector efficiency. Concatenated entanglement swapping enables huge distances for quantum key-distribution but at the expense of low key generation rate.

The impact of quantum technology will be profound and far-reaching: secure communication networks for consumers, corporations and government; precision sensors for biomedical technology and environmental monitoring; quantum simulators for the design of new materials, pharmaceuticals and clean energy devices; and ultra-powerful quantum computers for addressing otherwise impossibly large datasets for machine learning and artificial intelligence applications. However, engineering quantum systems and controlling them is an immense technological challenge: they are inherently fragile; and information extracted from a quantum system necessarily disturbs the system itself. Of the various approaches to quantum technologies, photons are particularly appealing for their low-noise properties and ease of manipulation at the single qubit level. We have developed an integrated waveguide approach to photonic quantum circuits for high performance, miniaturization and scalability. We will described our latest progress in generating, manipulating and interacting single photons in waveguide circuits on silicon chips.

Two-mode squeezed light is a macroscopic quantum entangled state of electro-magnetic fields and shows non-classical correlation between quadrature phase amplitudes in each optical mode. In this work the author is developing a high-quality two-mode squeezed light source for exploring the possibility of a quantum radar system based on a quantum illumination method and also expecting to apply it to quantum imaging. Two-mode squeezed light can be generated by combining two independent single-mode squeezed light beams using a beam splitter with a relative optical phase of 90 degrees between them. In current experimental progress the author developed two sub-threshold optical parametric oscillators to generate single-mode squeezed light beams. In the actual quantum radar or quantum imaging system, a turbulent atmosphere degrades quantum entanglement of a light source and affects performance of target detection. An optical loss is one of the simplest and most probable examples of environmental factors. In this work an evaluation method for quantum entanglement of two-mode squeezed light source is developed with consideration for the optical loss based on Duan's inseparability criteria.

A high generation rate photon-pair source using a dual element periodically-poled potassium titanyl phosphate (PP KTP) waveguide is described. The fully integrated photon-pair source consists of a 1064-nm pump diode laser, fiber-coupled to a dual element waveguide within which a pair of 1064-nm photons are up-converted to a single 532-nm photon in the first stage. In the second stage, the 532-nm photon is down-converted to an entangled photon-pair at 800 nm and 1600 nm which are fiber-coupled at the waveguide output. The photon-pair source features a high pair generation rate, a compact power-efficient package, and continuous wave (CW) or pulsed operation. This is a significant step towards the long term goal of developing sources for high-rate Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) to enable Earth-space secure communications. Characterization and test results are presented. Details and preliminary results of a laboratory free space QKD experiment with the B92 protocol are also presented.