• Photonics Research
  • Vol. 11, Issue 7, 1314 (2023)
Dongning Liu1, Jingyuan Liu1, Xiaosong Ren1, Xue Feng1, Fang Liu1, Kaiyu Cui1, Yidong Huang1、2, and Wei Zhang1、2、*
Author Affiliations
  • 1Frontier Science Center for Quantum Information, Beijing National Research Center for Information Science and Technology (BNRist), Electronic Engineering Department, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
  • 2Beijing Academy of Quantum Information Sciences, Beijing 100193, China
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    DOI: 10.1364/PRJ.489139 Cite this Article Set citation alerts
    Dongning Liu, Jingyuan Liu, Xiaosong Ren, Xue Feng, Fang Liu, Kaiyu Cui, Yidong Huang, Wei Zhang. Photonic-reconfigurable entanglement distribution network based on silicon quantum photonics[J]. Photonics Research, 2023, 11(7): 1314 Copy Citation Text show less

    Abstract

    The entanglement distribution network connects remote users by sharing entanglement resources, which is essential for realizing quantum internet. We propose a photonic-reconfigurable entanglement distribution network (PR-EDN) based on a silicon quantum photonic chip. The entanglement resources are generated by a quantum light source array based on spontaneous four-wave mixing in silicon waveguides and distributed to different users through time-reversed Hong–Ou–Mandel interference by on-chip Mach–Zehnder interferometers with thermo-optic phase shifters (TOPSs). A chip sample is designed and fabricated, supporting a PR-EDN with 3 subnets and 24 users. The network topology of the PR-EDN could be reconfigured in three network states by controlling the quantum interference through the TOPSs, which is demonstrated experimentally. Furthermore, a reconfigurable entanglement-based quantum key distribution network is realized as an application of the PR-EDN. The reconfigurable network topology makes the PR-EDN suitable for future quantum networks requiring complicated network control and management. Moreover, it is also shown that silicon quantum photonic chips have great potential for large-scale PR-EDN, thanks to their capacities for generating and manipulating plenty of entanglement resources.
    |Ψ1=12(|1s1iup+ei2ϕ|1s1idown).

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    |Ψ2=cosϕ|Ψbunch+sinϕ|Ψsplit,

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    |Ψbunch=12(|1s1iup|0s0idown|0s0iup|1s1idown),

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    |Ψsplit=12(|1s0iup|0s1idown+|0s1iup|1s0idown).

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    Dongning Liu, Jingyuan Liu, Xiaosong Ren, Xue Feng, Fang Liu, Kaiyu Cui, Yidong Huang, Wei Zhang. Photonic-reconfigurable entanglement distribution network based on silicon quantum photonics[J]. Photonics Research, 2023, 11(7): 1314
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