Fast and robust approach to long-distance quantum communication with atomic ensembles (original) (raw)
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Robust and efficient quantum repeaters with atomic ensembles and linear optics
Physical Review A, 2008
In the last few years there has been a lot of interest in quantum repeater protocols using only atomic ensembles and linear optics. Here we show that the local generation of high-fidelity entangled pairs of atomic excitations, in combination with the use of two-photon detections for long-distance entanglement generation, permits the implementation of a very attractive quantum repeater protocol. Such a repeater is robust with respect to phase fluctuations in the transmission channels, and at the same time achieves higher entanglement generation rates than other protocols using the same ingredients. We propose an efficient method of generating high-fidelity entangled pairs locally, based on the partial readout of the ensemble-based memories. We also discuss the experimental implementation of the proposed protocol.
Quantum repeaters based on atomic ensembles and linear optics
Reviews of Modern Physics, 2011
The distribution of quantum states over long distances is limited by photon loss. Straightforward amplification as in classical telecommunications is not an option in quantum communication because of the no-cloning theorem. This problem could be overcome by implementing quantum repeater protocols, which create long-distance entanglement from shorter-distance entanglement via entanglement swapping. Such protocols require the capacity to create entanglement in a heralded fashion, to store it in quantum memories, and to swap it. One attractive general strategy for realizing quantum repeaters is based on the use of atomic ensembles as quantum memories, in combination with linear optical techniques and photon counting to perform all required operations. Here we review the theoretical and experimental status quo of this very active field. We compare the potential of different approaches quantitatively, with a focus on the most immediate goal of outperforming the direct transmission of photons.
Fault-tolerant quantum repeater with atomic ensembles and linear optics
Physical Review A, 2007
We present a detailed analysis of a robust quantum repeater architecture building on the original Duan-Lukin-Cirac-Zoller ͑DLCZ͒ protocol ͓L.M. Duan et al. Nature ͑London͒ 414, 413 ͑2001͔͒. The architecture is based on two-photon Hong-Ou-Mandel-type interference which relaxes the long-distance interferometric stability requirements by about seven orders of magnitude, from subwavelength for the single photon interference required by DLCZ to the coherence length of the photons, thereby removing the weakest point in the DLCZ scheme. Our proposal provides an exciting possibility for robust and realistic long-distance quantum communication.
A Robust Atom-Photon Entanglement Source for Quantum Repeaters
Phys Rev Lett, 2007
We demonstrate a novel way to efficiently and very robust create an entanglement between an atomic and a photonic qubit. A single laser beam is used to excite one atomic ensemble and two different spatial modes of scattered Raman fields are collected to generate the atom-photon entanglement. With the help of build-in quantum memory, the entanglement still exists after 20.5 mu\mumus storage time which is further proved by the violation of CHSH type Bell's inequality. Our entanglement procedure is the building block for a novel robust quantum repeater architecture [Zhao et al, Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 240502 (2007)]. Our approach can be easily extended to generate high dimensional atom-photon entanglements.
Physical Review A, 2005
We analyze a novel method that uses fixed, minimal physical resources to achieve generation and nested purification of quantum entanglement for quantum communication over arbitrarily long distances, and discuss its implementation using realistic photon emitters and photonic channels. In this method, we use single photon emitters with two internal degrees of freedom formed by an electron spin and a nuclear spin to build intermediate nodes in a quantum channel. State-selective fluorescence is used for probabilistic entanglement generation between electron spins in adjacent nodes. We analyze in detail several approaches which are applicable to realistic, homogeneously broadened single photon emitters. Furthermore, the coupled electron and nuclear spins can be used to efficiently implement entanglement swapping and purification. We show that these techniques can be combined to generate high-fidelity entanglement over arbitrarily long distances. We present a specific protocol that functions in polynomial time and tolerates percent-level errors in entanglement fidelity and local operations. The scheme has the lowest requirements on physical resources of any current scheme for fully fault-tolerant quantum repeaters.
Demonstration of a stable atom-photon entanglement source for quantum repeaters
Physical review letters, 2007
We demonstrate a novel way to efficiently and very robust create an entanglement between an atomic and a photonic qubit. A single laser beam is used to excite one atomic ensemble and two different spatial modes of scattered Raman fields are collected to generate the atom-photon entanglement. With the help of build-in quantum memory, the entanglement still exists after 20.5 µs storage time which is further proved by the violation of CHSH type Bell's inequality. Our entanglement procedure is the building block for a novel robust quantum repeater architecture [Zhao et al, Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 240502 (2007)]. Our approach can be easily extended to generate high dimensional atom-photon entanglements.
Fault-tolerant Quantum Communication with Minimal Physical Requirements
2004
We describe a novel protocol for a quantum repeater which enables long distance quantum communication through realistic, lossy photonic channels. Contrary to previous proposals, our protocol incorporates active purification of arbitrary errors at each step of the protocol using only two qubits at each repeater station. Because of these minimal physical requirements, the present protocol can be realized in simple physical systems such as solid-state single photon emitters. As an example, we show how nitrogen vacancy color centers in diamond can be used to implement the protocol, using the nuclear and electronic spin to form the two qubits.
Long-distance quantum communication with neutral atoms
Physical Review A, 2006
The architecture proposed by Duan, Lukin, Cirac, and Zoller (DLCZ) for long-distance quantum communication with atomic ensembles is analyzed. Its fidelity and throughput in entanglement distribution, entanglement swapping, and quantum teleportation is derived within a framework that accounts for multiple excitations in the ensembles as well as loss and asymmetries in the channel. The DLCZ performance metrics that are obtained are compared to the corresponding results for the trapped-atom quantum communication architecture that has been proposed by a team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Northwestern University (MIT/NU). Both systems are found to be capable of high-fidelity entanglement distribution. However, the DLCZ scheme only provides conditional teleportation and repeater operation, whereas the MIT/NU architecture affords full Bell-state measurements on its trapped atoms. Moreover, it is shown that achieving unity conditional fidelity in DLCZ teleportation and repeater operation requires ideal photon-number resolving detectors. The maximum conditional fidelities for DLCZ teleportation and repeater operation that can be realized with non-resolving detectors are 1/2 and 2/3, respectively.
Robust creation of entanglement between remote memory qubits
Physical review letters, 2007
In this Letter we propose a robust quantum repeater architecture building on the original DLCZ protocol [L.M. Duan et al., Nature 414, 413 (2001)]. The architecture is based on two-photon Hong-Ou-Mandel-type interference which relaxes the long distance stability requirements by about 7 orders of magnitude, from sub wavelength for the single photon interference required by DLCZ to the coherence length of the photons. Our proposal provides an exciting possibility for robust and realistic long distance quantum communication.
Creation of high-quality long-distance entanglement with flexible resources
Physical Review A, 2009
We present a quantum repeater protocol that generates the elementary segments of entangled photons through the communication of qubus in coherent states. The input photons at the repeater stations can be in arbitrary states to save the local state preparation time for the operations. The flexibility of the scheme accelerates the generation of the elementary segments (close to the exact Bell states) to a high rate for practical quantum communications. The entanglement connection to long distances is simplified and sped up, possibly realizing an entangled pair of high quality within the time in the order of that for classical communication between two far-away locations.