Quantum Networks

Despite the tremendous progress of quantum cryptography, efficient quantum communication over long distances (≥1000 km) remains an outstanding challenge due to fiber attenuation and operation errors accumulated over the entire communication distance. Quantum repeaters (QRs) can overcome both photon loss and operation errors, and hence significantly speedup the communication rate. Depending on the methods used to correct loss and operation errors, we may classify all the proposed QR schemes into three categories (generations). The goal of our theoretical investigation is to provide a guideline for building future quantum repeaters once all technologies are ready for such a large scale application.

  • We develop efficient and ultrafast QR protocols that can correct both photon loss and operation errors, so that we can achieve ultra-fast quantum communication over global scales.
  • We systematically compare three generations of quantum repeaters by evaluating the cost of both temporal and physical resources.
  • We investigate multi-level encoding and continuous variable encoding schemes for quantum repeater applications.

Selected Publications:

  1. “Optimal architectures for long distance quantum communication,” S. Muralidharan, L. Li, J. Kim, N. Lütkenhaus, M. D. Lukin and L. Jiang, Scientific Reports 6, 20463 (2016).
  2. “Ultrafast and Fault-Tolerant Quantum Communication across Long Distances,” S. Muralidharan, J. Kim, N. Lütkenhaus, M. D. Lukin and L. Jiang, Phys. Rev. Lett. 112, 250501 (2014).
  3. “Quantum Repeater with Encoding,” L. Jiang, J. M. Taylor, K. Nemoto, W. J. Munro, R. Van Meter and M. D. Lukin, Phys. Rev. A 79, 032325 (2009).
  4. “Fast and robust approach to long-distance quantum communication with atomic ensembles,” L. Jiang, J. M. Taylor and M. D. Lukin, Phys. Rev. A 76, 012301 (2007).
  5. “Distributed Quantum Computation Based-on Small Quantum Registers,” L. Jiang, J. M. Taylor, A. S. Sorensen and M. D. Lukin, Phys. Rev. A 76, 062323 (2007).
  6. “Optimal approach to quantum communication algorithms using dynamic programming,” L. Jiang, J. M. Taylor, N. Khaneja and M. D. Lukin, PNAS 104, 17291-17296 (2007).