Long-distance distribution of telecom time-energy entanglement generated on a silicon chip

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the generation and distribution of time-energy entangled photon pairs from an on-chip silicon device over 81 km of optical fiber, advancing scalable quantum network development.

Contribution

It introduces a silicon chip-based source of time-energy entanglement and achieves long-distance distribution, unlike traditional bulk crystal sources.

Findings

Entanglement successfully distributed over 81 km fiber

On-chip silicon resonator effectively generates entangled photon pairs

Paves the way for scalable quantum networks

Abstract

Entanglement distribution is a critical technique that enables numerous quantum applications. Most fiber-based long-distance experiments reported to date have utilized photon pair sources generated in bulk optical crystals, with the entanglement encoded in the polarization degree of freedom. Here, we create time-energy entanglement for photon pairs generated from an on-chip silicon ring resonator via SFWM process and report the distribution of the entanglement over standard optical fiber with distance >81 km. Our work paves the way for future large-scale quantum networks with connect of distant quantum nodes.