28 research outputs found
Three-color Sagnac source of polarization-entangled photon pairs
We demonstrate a compact and stable source of polarization-entangled pairs of
photons, one at 810 nm wavelength for high detection efficiency and the other
at 1550 nm for long-distance fiber communication networks. Due to a novel
Sagnac-based design of the interferometer no active stabilization is needed.
Using only one 30 mm ppKTP bulk crystal the source produces photons with a
spectral brightness of 1.13x10^6 pairs/s/mW/THz with an entanglement fidelity
of 98.2%. Both photons are single-mode fiber coupled and ready to be used in
quantum key distribution (QKD) or transmission of photonic quantum states over
large distances.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure
Deployment Opportunities for DPS-QKD in the Co-Existence Regime of Lit GPON / NG-PON2 Access Networks
We demonstrate cost-effective QKD integration for GPON and NG-PON2. Operation
at 5.1e-7 secure bits/pulse and a QBER of 3.28% is accomplished for a 13.5-km
reach, 2:16-split PON, with 0.52% co-existence penalty for 19 classical
channels
Novel High-Speed Polarization Source for Decoy-State BB84 Quantum Key Distribution over Free Space and Satellite Links
To implement the BB84 decoy-state quantum key distribution (QKD) protocol
over a lossy ground-satellite quantum uplink requires a source that has high
repetition rate of short laser pulses, long term stability, and no phase
correlations between pulses. We present a new type of telecom optical
polarization and amplitude modulator, based on a balanced Mach-Zehnder
interferometer configuration, coupled to a polarization-preserving
sum-frequency generation (SFG) optical setup, generating 532 nm photons with
modulated polarization and amplitude states. The weak coherent pulses produced
by SFG meet the challenging requirements for long range QKD, featuring a high
clock rate of 76 MHz, pico-second pulse width, phase randomization, and 98%
polarization visibility for all states. Successful QKD has been demonstrated
using this apparatus with full system stability up to 160 minutes and channel
losses as high 57 dB [Phys. Rev. A, Vol. 84, p.062326]. We present the design
and simulation of the hardware through the Mueller matrix and Stokes vector
relations, together with an experimental implementation working in the telecom
wavelength band. We show the utility of the complete system by performing high
loss QKD simulations, and confirm that our modulator fulfills the expected
performance.Comment: 21 pages, 8 figures and 2 table
Photon bunching in parametric down-conversion with continuous wave excitation
The first direct measurement of photon bunching (g2 correlation function) in
one output arm of a spontaneous-parametric-down-conversion source operated with
a continuous pump laser in the single-photon regime is demonstrated. The result
is in agreement with the statistics of a thermal field of the same coherence
length, and shows the feasibility of investigating photon statistics with
compact cw-pumped sources. Implications for entanglement-based quantum
cryptography are discussed.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, expanded introduction and experimental details
added. Accepted for publication in Phys.Rev.