Quantum Limits on the Capacity of Multispan Links With Phase-Sensitive Amplification

Abstract

Long-distance fiber communication stands as a cornerstone of modern technology. One of the underlying principles, preventing signal levels from diminishing below the detectability threshold, is optical amplification. In particular, phase-sensitive amplifiers offer a promising solution as ideally they do not introduce any excess additive noise. Since such devices in principle operate at the quantum noise level, a natural question is whether one can further improve the capacity of amplified links using principles of quantum mechanics as it offers a much broader scope of signal modulations and detection schemes. We derive ultimate limits determined by the laws of quantum mechanics on the capacity of multispan links with phase sensitive amplification. We show that the quantum advantage over the standard approach based on optical quadrature detection is small and vanishes for long links.