Polarization-entangled Bell States Research Articles

Nonlinear nanoresonators for Bell state generation

Entangled photon states are a fundamental resource for optical quantum technologies and investigating the fundamental predictions of quantum mechanics. Up to now such states are mainly generated in macroscopic nonlinear optical systems with elaborately tailored optical properties. In this theoretical work, we extend the understanding on the generation of entangled photonic states toward the nanoscale regime by investigating the fundamental properties of photon-pair generation in sub-wavelength nonlinear nanoresonators. Taking materials with Zinc-Blende structure as an example, we reveal that such systems can naturally generate various polarization-entangled Bell states over a very broad range of wavelengths and emission directions, with little to no engineering needed. Interestingly, we uncover different regimes of operation, where polarization-entangled photons can be generated with dependence on or complete independence from the pumping wavelength and polarization, and the modal content of the nanoresonator. Our work also shows the potential of nonlinear nanoresonators as miniaturized sources of biphoton states with highly complex and tunable properties.

Flexible source of correlated photons based on LNOI rib waveguides

Lithium niobate on insulator (LNOI) material has great potential for photonic integrated circuits, providing substantial versatility in design of various integrated components. To properly use these components in the implementation of different quantum protocols, photons with different properties are required. In this paper, we theoretically demonstrate a flexible source of correlated photons built on the LNOI waveguide with a special geometry. This source is based on the parametric down-conversion (PDC) process, in which the signal and idler photons are generated at the telecom wavelength and have different spatial profiles and polarizations, but the same group velocities. Distinguishability in polarizations and spatial profiles facilitates the routing and manipulating individual photons, while the equality of their group velocities leads to the absence of temporal walk-off between photons. We show how the spectral properties of the generated photons and the number of their frequency modes can be controlled depending on the pump characteristics and the waveguide length. Finally, we discuss special regimes, in which narrowband light with strong frequency correlations and polarization-entangled Bell states are generated at the telecom wavelength.

Generation and dynamic manipulation of frequency degenerate polarization entangled Bell states by a silicon quantum photonic circuit

A silicon quantum photonic circuit was proposed and realized for the generation and the dynamic manipulation of telecom-band frequency-degenerate polarization entangled Bell states. Frequency degenerate biphoton states were generated in four silicon waveguides by spontaneous four wave mixing. They were transformed to polarization entangled Bell states through on-chip quantum interference and quantum superposition, and then coupled to optical fibers. The property of polarization entanglement in generated photon pairs was demonstrated by two-photon interference under two non-orthogonal polarization bases. The output state could be dynamically switched between two Bell states, which was demonstrated by the simplified Bell state measurement. The experiment results indicated that the manipulation speed supported a modulation rate of several tens kHz, showing its potential on applications of quantum communication and quantum information processing requiring Bell state encoding and dynamic control.

All-optical Bell states through a multi-poled, integrated waveguide device

In this paper, we propose the generation of all four polarization-entangled Bell states in a potassium titanyl phosphate waveguide device. This is achieved through non-degenerate spontaneous parametric downconversion and quasi-phase-matching with special non-uniform poling in different lengths. These biphoton states consist of the signal being emitted in a telecommunication wavelength. Through their joint spectral amplitude, we study the frequency correlation properties of the photon pairs. Polarization-entangled photon pairs are used as a resource of entanglement in various quantum optics experiments and there is a demand for generating all four photonic Bell states in a single waveguide-based device in quantum information applications.

Generation of two different polarization-entangled biphoton states in a potassium titanyl phosphate waveguide device with multiple periodic poling

In this paper, we propose a single integrated waveguide device to generate two different polarization-entangled Bell states involving nondegenerate photon pairs (with the signal photons being emitted in the telecom $C$ band) by utilizing type-0, type-I, and type-II quasi-phase-matching (QPM). In this context, we have studied ppKTP (periodically-poled potassium titanyl phosphate) in detail. To obtain polarization entanglement of the emitted photons, we have used two different situations, two cascaded QPM gratings (of the same length) to obtain $|{\ensuremath{\psi}}^{+}\ensuremath{\rangle}$, and two separate QPM gratings (of different lengths) to obtain $|{\ensuremath{\phi}}^{+}\ensuremath{\rangle}$. In such a scenario, maximal entanglement can be quantified in terms of overlap bandwidths of the two phase-matched processes.

High-Efficiency Three-Party Quantum Key Agreement Protocol with Quantum Dense Coding and Bell States

We propose a high-efficiency three-party quantum key agreement protocol, by utilizing two-photon polarization-entangled Bell states and a few single-photon polarization states as the information carriers, and we use the quantum dense coding method to improve its efficiency. In this protocol, each participant performs one of four unitary operations to encode their sub-secret key on the passing photons which contain two parts, the first quantum qubits of Bell states and a small number of single-photon states. At the end of this protocol, based on very little information announced by other, all participants involved can deduce the same final shared key simultaneously. We analyze the security and the efficiency of this protocol, showing that it has a high efficiency and can resist both outside attacks and inside attacks. As a consequence, our protocol is a secure and efficient three-party quantum key agreement protocol.

Experimental long-distance quantum secure direct communication

Quantum secure direct communication (QSDC) is an important quantum communication branch, which realizes the secure information transmission directly without encryption and decryption processes. Recently, two table-top experiments have demonstrated the principle of QSDC. Here, we report the first long-distance QSDC experiment, including the security test, information encoding, fiber transmission and decoding. After the fiber transmission of 0.5 km, quantum state fidelities of the two polarization entangled Bell states are 91% and 88%, respectively, which are used for information coding. We theoretically analyze the performance of the QSDC system based on current optical communication technologies, showing that QSDC over fiber links of several tens kilometers could be expected. It demonstrates the potential of long-distance QSDC and supports its future applications on quantum communication networks.

Fiber-based frequency-degenerate polarization entangled photon pair sources for information encoding.

In this paper, a generation scheme of telecom band frequency-degenerate polarization entangled photon pairs is proposed and demonstrated experimentally. It is based on the vector spontaneous four wave mixing (SFWM) process in a Sagnac fiber loop, in which two frequency-degenerate and polarization orthogonal biphoton states have equal probabilities for generating along the clockwise and counter-clockwise directions. The quantum interference between them at the 50:50 fiber coupler of the fiber loop separates the two frequency-degenerate photons in a pair, leading to the generation of polarization entanglement. The raw fringe visibilities of the two-photon interferences under two non-orthogonal polarization bases are 91% and 90%, respectively. Information can be encoded on the generated photon pairs using the polarization entangled Bell states, which requires the frequency-degenerate property. It is demonstrated by a simplified Bell state measurement with a fringe visibility of 83%.

Quantum secure direct communication against the collective noise with polarization-entangled Bell states

Quantum secure direct communication against the collective noise with polarization-entangled Bell states Li Dong1,∗, Jun-Xi Wang1, Qing-Yang Li1, Hong-Zhi Shen2, Hai-Kuan Dong1, Xiao-Ming Xiu1,3,∗, Yuan-Peng Ren4, and Ya-Jun Gao1 1 College of Mathematics and Physics, Bohai University, Jinzhou 121013, P. R. China 2 School of Physics and Optoelectronic Technology, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, P. R. China 3 Centre for Quantum Technologies, National University of Singapore, 117543, Singapore 4 College of Engineering, Bohai University, Jinzhou 121013, P. R. China ∗E-mail: donglixm@163.com, xiuxiaomingdl@126.com

Two-party quantum privacy comparison with polarization-entangled bell states and the coherent states

We propose a protocol of quantum privacy comparison with polarization-entangled Bell states and the coherent states. One of two legitimate participants, Alice, prepares polarization-entangled Bell states and keeps one photon of each photon pair and sends the other photons to the third party, Charlie. Receiving the photons, Charlie performs single-photon transformation operations on them and then sends them to the other legitimate participant, Bob. Three participants adopt parity analysis method to check the distribution security of Bell states. Exploiting polarization beam splitters and non-linear interactions mediated by the probe coherent states in Kerr media, Alice and Bob check the parities of their photons using the bases of {|H〉, |V〉} or {|+〉, |-〉}. On the basis of the parity analysis outcomes and Charlie's publicized information, they can analyze the security of the distributed quantum channel. Confirming secure distribution of the shared Bell states, two participants perform respective parity measurements on the privacy photons and own photons of Bell states, and then send the results to Charlie. According to information provided by two legitimate participants and his single-qubit transformation operations, Charlie compares the privacy information of Alice and Bob and publicizes the conclusion.

Two-party QPC with polarization-entangled Bell states and the coherent states

We propose a protocol of quantum privacy comparison with polarization-entangled Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (Bell) states and the coherent states. One of two legitimate participants, Alice, prepares polarization-entangled Bell states and keeps one photon of each photon pair and sends the other photons to the third party, Charlie. Receiving the photons, Charlie performs single-photon transformation operations on them and then sends them to the other legitimate participant, Bob. Three participants adopt parity analysis method to check the distribution security of Bell states. Exploiting polarization beam splitters and nonlinear interactions mediated by the probe coherent states in Kerr media, Alice and Bob check the parities of their photons using the bases of $\{\ket H, \ket V\}$ or $\{\ket +, \ket -\}$. On the basis of the parity analysis outcomes and Charlie's publicized information, they can analyze the security of the distributed quantum channel. Confirming secure distribution of the shared Bell states, two participants perform respective parity measurements on the privacy photons and own photons of Bell states, and then send the results to Charlie. According to information provided by two legitimate participants and his single-qubit transformation operations, Charlie compares the privacy information of Alice and Bob and publicizes the conclusion.

Polarization-entangled Bell states generation based on birefringence in high nonlinear microstructure fiber at 15 μm: erratum

Polarization-entangled photon pair generation based on two scalar scattering processes of the vector four- photon scattering has been demonstrated experimentally in high nonlinear microstructure fiber with birefringence. By controlling pump polarization state, polarization-entangled Bell states can be realized. It provides a simple way to realize efficient and compact fiber-based polarization-entangled photon pair sources.

Polarization-entangled Bell states generation based on birefringence in high nonlinear microstructure fiber at 15 μm

Polarization-entangled photon pair generation based on two scalar scattering processes of the vector four photon scattering has been demonstrated experimentally in high nonlinear microstructure fiber with birefringence. By controlling the pump polarization state, polarization-entangled Bell states can be realized. It is provides a simple way to realize efficient and compact fiber based polarization-entangled photon pair sources.

Dispersion spreading of polarization-entangled states of light and two-photon interference

We study the interference structure of the second-order intensity correlation function for polarization-entangled two-photon light obtained from type-II collinear frequency-degenerate spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC). The structure is visualised due to the spreading of the two-photon amplitude as two-photon light propagates through optical fibre with group-velocity dispersion (GVD). Because of the spreading, polarization-entangled Bell states can be obtained without any birefringence compensation at the output of the nonlinear crystal; instead, proper time selection of the intensity correlation function is required. A birefringent material inserted at the output of the nonlinear crystal (either reducing the initial o-e delay between the oppositely polarized twin photons or increasing this delay) leads to a more complicated interference structure of the correlation function.

Linear optical scheme for error-free entanglement distribution and a quantum repeater

We present a linear optical scheme for error-free distribution of two-photon polarization entangled Bell states over noisy channels. The scheme can be applied to an elementary quantum repeater protocol with potentially significant improvements in efficiency and system complexity. The scheme is based on the use of polarization and time-bin encoding of photons and can perform single-pair, single-step purification with currently available technology.

Complete Bell-states analysis using hyper-entanglement

Entanglement of energy–time is used as an ancillary to analyze four polarization entangled Bell-states. The scheme requires only linear optics and single photon detectors, and is realizable with current technology. The overall efficiency is 50%. This Bell-states measurement scheme is useful for quantum dense coding and quantum teleportation protocols.