2026-08-05 米国国立標準技術研究所（NIST）
NIST physicist Yicheng Shi displays the equipment used to distribute entangled photons. Credit: Megan King
＜関連情報＞
- https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2026/08/spooky-particles-transit-dc-suburbs-step-toward-quantum-network
- https://opg.optica.org/jocn/fulltext.cfm?uri=jocn-18-8-813
偏波安定化空中光ファイバーにおけるエンタングルメント分布 Entanglement distribution over a polarization-stabilized aerial fiber
Yicheng Shi, Jing Su, Anouar Rahmouni, Pranish Shrestha, Mheni Merzouki, Gabriel Bello Portmann, Anne Lazenby, Mael Flament, Mehdi Namazi, Abdella Battou, Oliver Slattery, and Thomas Gerrits
Journal of Optical Communications and Networking Published: July 15, 2026
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1364/JOCN.592521
Abstract
Distributing quantum entanglement over telecommunication fiber is a fundamental task in metropolitan-scale quantum networks, enabling advanced applications such as quantum-secured communication, quantum sensing, and distributed quantum computing. Although polarization entanglement is relatively easy to generate and manipulate, its distribution across deployed fibers is challenging because of the time-varying polarization transformations imposed by the fiber, which must be actively stabilized. In this work, we experimentally demonstrate the distribution of polarization-entangled photons over a 62 km, partially aerial fiber between the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the University of Maryland. With polarization stabilization applied to the fiber, we achieved a photon pair rate of approximately 1500 s-1 and observed a time-averaged CHSH inequality parameter of S=2.34±0.37. During a continuous 24 h experiment, time-multiplexed polarization compensation sessions only cost 7.2% of the total link operation time, leaving an entanglement distribution uptime of 92.8%. Our results demonstrate the feasibility of distributing polarization-entangled photons over challenging fiber conditions, which is an important step toward the practical deployment of quantum networks.
