Passive Polarization Stabilization for Practical and Robust Entanglement Distribution

TL;DR

This paper introduces a passive polarization stabilization method using cross-aligned polarization-maintaining fibers to enable stable entanglement distribution without active compensation, enhancing robustness in quantum communication systems.

Contribution

The work demonstrates a simple, passive fiber configuration that maintains entanglement stability under noisy conditions, eliminating the need for real-time polarization control.

Findings

PMF-based setup achieves higher average visibility (0.867) compared to SMF (0.444).

The method provides stable entanglement transmission without active compensation.

Experimental results support its application in long-distance quantum communication.

Abstract

Quantum entanglement is a key resource in quantum information science, playing an essential role in quantum key distribution (QKD), quantum networks, and distributed quantum computing. However, practical applications require techniques capable of reliably distributing entanglement under lossy and noisy conditions. In this work, we demonstrate that a simple configuration using two polarization-maintaining fibers (PMFs) arranged in a cross-axis alignment enables stable distribution of entangled photon pairs without the need for real-time polarization compensation. To support this, we performed quantum information modeling and fidelity simulations for the cross-aligned PMF pair, and experimentally compared the entanglement preservation and interference fringe stability in setups based on standard single-mode fibers (SMFs) and PMFs. The experimental results show that the PMF-based configuration achieves an average visibility of 0.867 and an error propagation of 0.023 under unstable conditions, whereas the SMF setup exhibits a significantly lower stability with an average visibility of 0.444 and an error propagation of 0.167 under the same conditions. These results indicate that the cross-aligned PMF pair allows robust entanglement transmission without complex active compensation devices, suggesting its suitability for reliable quantum state distribution in long-distance quantum communication, drone-based QKD, and multi-user quantum networks.