Demonstration of 50 km Fiber-optic two-way quantum time transfer at femtosecond-scale precision

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a 50 km fiber-optic two-way quantum time transfer achieving femtosecond-scale synchronization precision, showcasing its potential for high-precision timekeeping in practical fiber network applications.

Contribution

It experimentally verifies two-way quantum time transfer over 50 km fiber with femtosecond stability, including independent clock synchronization, advancing practical quantum time transfer technology.

Findings

Achieved 2.6 ps short-term stability at 7 s

Reached 54.6 fs long-term stability at 57300 s with common clock

Achieved 89.5 fs stability with independent clocks

Abstract

The two-way quantum time transfer method has been proposed and experimentally demonstrated for its potential enhancements in precision and better guarantee of security. To further testify its advantage in practical applications, the applicable direct transmission distance as well as the achievable synchronization precision between independent time scales is of great interest. In this paper, an experiment on two-way quantum time transfer has been carried out over a 50 km long fiber link. With the common clock reference, a short-term stability of 2.6 ps at an averaging time of 7 s and a long-term stability of 54.6 fs at 57300 s were obtained. With independent clock references, assisted by microwave frequency transfer technology, the achieved synchronization showed almost equal performance and reached a stability of 89.5 fs at 57300 s. Furthermore, the spectral consistency of the utilized entangled photon pair sources has been studied concerning its effect on the transfer accuracy and long-term stability. The results obtained have promised a bright future of the two-way quantum time transfer for realizing high-precision time synchronization on metropolitan area fiber links.