Long-fiber Sagnac interferometers for twin field quantum key distribution networks

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a long-distance Sagnac interferometer for twin field quantum key distribution, overcoming phase stabilization challenges with innovative pulse and detection techniques, achieving high visibility over 200 km fiber.

Contribution

It introduces a method to mitigate Rayleigh backscattering noise in long fiber Sagnac interferometers for TFQKD, enabling stable operation without active phase stabilization over 200 km.

Findings

Achieved >97% interference visibility in 200 km fiber

Demonstrated longest fiber Sagnac interferometer to date

Validated phase noise scaling with loop length to the third power

Abstract

A Sagnac loop structure can help overcome the major difficulty in the practical implementation of a twin field quantum key distribution (TFQKD) network, namely, the need to stabilize the phase of a quantum state over many kilometers of fiber. Unfortunately, Rayleigh backscattering noise limits the signal-to-noise ratio for Sagnac systems containing long fibers and lossy photonic devices. Here, we solve this problem by sending optical pulses in long on-off bursts and using time post-selection on measurements taken with free-run single-photon avalanche detectors. We also investigate the impact of the residual phase noise uncompensated by the Sagnac structure and find that the variance of the phase noise scales as loop length to the third power, verifying an existing calculation in the literature. We measure the interference visibility in Sagnac loops of varying length without active phase stabilization and achieve > 97% visibility in 200 km ultra-low-loss fiber, which is, to our knowledge, the longest fiber Sagnac interferometer demonstrated. Our results suggest that a Sagnac system is feasible for long-distance TFQKD networks, an important step towards the practical implementation of metropolitan quantum networks.