Photonic Quantum Networks formed from NV- Centers

TL;DR

This paper proposes a simple, high-fidelity quantum repeater architecture using NV- centers in diamond, enabling scalable quantum networks with current technology by combining deterministic processes and heralded probabilistic interactions.

Contribution

It introduces a novel NV- based quantum repeater scheme with deterministic modules and scalable architecture for large quantum networks.

Findings

Achieves >99% fidelity in repeater modules.

Supports large-scale quantum networks with existing technology.

Combines deterministic and heralded probabilistic processes effectively.

Abstract

In this article we present a simple repeater scheme based on the negatively-charged nitrogen vacancy centre in diamond (NV-). Each repeater node is built from simple modules comprising an optical cavity containing a single NV-, with one nuclear spin from 15N as quantum memory. The operation in the module only uses deterministic processes and interactions and achieves high fidelity (>99%) operation, and modules are connected by optical fiber. In the repeater node architecture, the processes between modules by photons can be in principle deterministic, however current limitations on optical components lead to the processes to be probabilistic but heralded. The most resource modest repeater architecture contains at least two modules at each node, and the repeater nodes are than connected by telecom wavelength entangled photon pairs. We discuss the performance of quantum repeaters starting from the minimum-resource strategy with several modules (~10) and then incorporating more resource-intense strategies step by step. Our architecture enables large-scale quantum information networks with existing technology.