Hybrid Quantum Repeater

In a collaborative effort spanning three countries the Bernien group, Tittel group and Borregaard group propose a new hybrid quantum repeater architecture that could drastically improve the speed in a quantum network. The architecture pairs the multimode capabilities of a rare-earth ion doped quantum memory with individual atoms coupled to nanophotonic crystal cavities for the rapid generation of entangled photon pairs. One photon is emitted at telecom wavelength and is sent to a far-away node, while the other is at IR wavelength and stored in the memory. There it can be retrieved if the telecom photon successfully arrived. The photon source just keeps rapidly firing the entangled pairs without having to wait for the success signal, therefore overcoming a speed limit in current architectures. Find out more here.