A two-way photonic quantum entanglement transfer interface

A quantum interface for two-way entanglement transfer, e.g., between orbital angular momentum degree of freedom in free space and time-energy degree of freedom in optical fibers, provides a way toward establishing entanglement between remote heterogeneous quantum nodes. Here, we experimentally demonstrate this kind of transfer interface by using two interferometric cyclic gates. By using this quantum interface, we perform two-way entanglement transfer for the two degrees of freedom. The results show that the quantum entangled state can be switched back and forth between orbital angular momentum and time-energy degrees of freedom, and the fidelity of the state before and after switching is higher than 90%. Our work demonstrates the feasibility and high performance of our proposed transfer interface, and paves a route toward building a large-scale quantum communication network.

Yiwen Huang, Yuanhua Li, Zantong Qi, Juan Feng, Yuanlin Zheng, Xianfeng Chen