Quantum computing and quantum communication, have been greatly developed in recent years and expected to contribute to quantum internet technologies, including cloud quantum computing and unconditionally secure communication. However, long-distance quantum communication is challenging mainly because of optical fiber losses; quantum repeaters are indispensable for fiber-based transmission because unknown quantum states cannot be amplified with certainty. In this study, we demonstrate a versatile entanglement source in the telecom band for fiber-based quantum internet, which has a narrow linewidth of sub-MHz range, entanglement fidelity of more than 95%, and Bell-state generation even with frequency multimode. Furthermore, after a total distribution length of 20-km in fiber, twophoton correlation is observed with an easily identifiable normalized correlation coefficient, despite the limited bandwidth of the wavelength converter. The presented implementation promises an efficient method for entanglement distribution that is compatible with quantum memory and frequency-multiplexed long-distance quantum communication applications.

Quantum repeaters are indispensable tools for long-distance quantum communication. However, frequency matching between entangled photon sources and remote quantum memories (QMs) is difficult, which is an obstacle to the implementation of quantum repeaters. In this paper, we demonstrate a method to achieve the coupling of a Pr:YSO as a fixed-time QM with a single telecommunication-wavelength photon through frequency stabilization using an optical frequency comb over all applied laser wavelengths. The demonstrated method can lead to the implementation of a quantum repeater scheme enabling an improvement of the entanglement generation rate, paving the way for long-distance quantum communication.

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To implement quantum repeaters for long-distance quantum communications, frequency stabilization is necessary for coupling telecommunication wavelength photons with quantum memories that operate in the visible region. Here, a narrow-linewidth optical frequency comb for frequency stabilization is developed through phase locking to an iodine-stabilized Nd:YAG laser using high-speed servo control. Subsequently, we phase lock a Pr3+:Y2SiO5 (Pr:YSO) quantum memory control laser to the developed optical frequency comb for linewidth transfer. The obtained linewidth (3.1 kHz) and frequency stability (1.84 × 10-12 at an averaging time of 0.01 s) are sufficient for multimode storage in Pr:YSO quantum memory.

Quantum repeaters, which are indispensable for long-distance quantum communication, are necessary for extending the entanglement from short distance to long distance; however, high-rate entanglement distribution, even between adjacent repeater nodes, has not been realized. In a recent work by [C. Jones et al., New J. Phys. 18 (2016) 083015], the entanglement distribution rate between adjacent repeater nodes was calculated for a plurality of quantum dots, nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond, and trapped ions adopted as quantum memories inside the repeater nodes. Considering practical use, arranging a plurality of quantum memories becomes so difficult with the state-of-the art technology. It is desirable that high-rate entanglement distribution is realized with as few memory crystals as possible. Here, we propose new entanglement distribution scheme with one quantum memory based on the atomic frequency comb which enables temporal multimode operation with one crystal. The adopted absorptive-type quantum memory degrades the difficulty of multimode operation compared with the previously investigated quantum memories directly generating spin-photon entanglement. It is shown that this scheme improves the distribution rate by nearly two orders of magnitude compared with the result in [C. Jones et al., New J. Phys. 18 (2016) 083015] and the experimental implementation is close by utilizing state-of-the-art technology.