Scientists teleport quantum states across 100 parallel optical channels

Quantum communication networks consist of several connected nodes that exchange information encoded in quantum states. These networks could potentially enable more secure communications between quantum devices in different locations.

One proposed approach for enabling quantum communication is known as quantum teleportation. This is a technique for transferring a quantum state carrying information between two systems by leveraging quantum entanglement, a phenomenon that links two or more quantum systems so that their properties remain correlated even when they are separated.

Researchers at East China Normal University recently demonstrated the teleportation of quantum information across 100 spatially distinct optical channels simultaneously in an experimental setting. Their paper, published in Physical Review Letters, introduces a new architecture for realizing quantum teleportation that could potentially be scaled up to larger networks.

“The idea for this paper developed naturally from our long-term work on all-optical continuous-variable quantum communication,” Jietai Jing, senior author of the paper, told Phys.org.

“We had been exploring how to increase the number of channels, including through orbital-angular-momentum multiplexing and the multiplexing of multiple degrees of freedom. We gradually realized that naturally spatially separated optical modes could provide a more direct and reconfigurable route toward large-scale parallel processing.”

Teleporting an entire image on parallel channels

Jing and colleagues developed a programmable spatial architecture in which naturally separated optical modes could function as independently controllable channels for large-scale parallel quantum teleportation.

The team then explored how the multimode properties of four-wave mixing could be used to implement this architecture for continuous-variable optical quantum states.

As Jing explained, “The primary objective of this work was to realize hundred-channel reconfigurable quantum teleportation with naturally spatially separable channels and provide a scalable architecture for encoding, controlling and processing many quantum channels in parallel.”

The team’s experimental approach has two key components. First, the researchers used a programmable spatial light modulator displaying computer-generated holograms to shape light into a 10 × 10 optical array of 100 separate, independently controllable optical modes. This optical array could be reconfigured by updating the pattern displayed on the device.

“We used four-wave mixing in hot rubidium vapor to generate the corresponding EPR entanglement array,” Jing explained. “We also shaped the pump beam into a nearly uniform top-hat profile so that different parts of the array experienced similar nonlinear interactions.”

The second component of the researchers’ approach is an all-optical method that allowed them to apply, across all 100 channels, the displacement necessary to reconstruct the teleported quantum information without measuring and processing each channel individually. Collectively, these methods allowed Jing and colleagues to experimentally realize reconfigurable quantum teleportation across 100 channels.

“By engineering the 10 × 10 input array and the corresponding EPR entanglement array to satisfy the phase-matching conditions of the same parametric amplifier, all 100 matched modes can be processed simultaneously in a single four-wave-mixing medium,” Jing said.

“At the receiving station, the optical feedforward field is then combined with the other half of the EPR entanglement array so that the required displacement operations also occur in parallel.”

Paving the way for larger quantum networks

This study establishes a new scalable architecture for encoding, controlling and processing several quantum channels simultaneously. Using this architecture, the researchers experimentally demonstrated parallel quantum teleportation across 100 spatially distinct optical channels.

They also teleported a “Q” image (i.e., a visual pattern shaped like the letter Q), obtaining fidelities that exceeded the corresponding classical limits. The architecture could eventually be scaled up to realize even larger communication networks.

“Our architecture could potentially be used to generate and manipulate large-scale spatially encoded quantum states,” Jing explained.

“In the longer term, it could also support parallel quantum-state transfer, multi-node quantum networks, distributed quantum information processing, and teleportation-based operations that act on many modes at once. I believe this type of scalable parallel architecture will be crucial for the future development of quantum communication and quantum information processing.”

This team’s efforts could potentially contribute to the future realization of large-scale quantum communication networks. In their next studies, Jing and colleagues plan to further increase the number of spatial channels in their architecture.

“In the current experiment, the 10 × 10 array was mainly limited by the pump power available for the low-noise parametric amplifier,” Jing added.

“We expect that higher-power lasers and tapered amplifiers could support larger arrays. More broadly, we would like to investigate how the same spatially scalable architecture can be used beyond teleportation—for example, to generate larger-scale quantum states and implement other parallel quantum information protocols.”

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