Polarization purity and dispersion characteristics of nested antiresonant nodeless hollow-core optical fiber at near- and short-wave-IR wavelengths for quantum communications
Afxenti, Ivi and Yu, Lijun and Shields, Taylor and Faccio, Daniele and Bradley, Thomas and Caspani, Lucia and Clerici, Matteo and Dada, Adetunmise C. (2024) Polarization purity and dispersion characteristics of nested antiresonant nodeless hollow-core optical fiber at near- and short-wave-IR wavelengths for quantum communications. Optics Express, 32 (20). pp. 34471-34481. ISSN 1094-4087 (https://doi.org/10.1364/oe.529331)
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Abstract
Advancements in quantum communication and sensing require improved optical transmission that ensures excellent state purity and reduced losses. While free-space optical communication is often preferred, its use becomes challenging over long distances due to beam divergence, atmospheric absorption, scattering, and turbulence, among other factors. In the case of polarization encoding, traditional silica-core optical fibers, though commonly used, struggle with maintaining state purity due to stress-induced birefringence. Hollow core fibers, and in particular nested antiresonant nodeless fibers (NANF), have recently been shown to possess unparalleled polarization purity with minimal birefringence in the telecom wavelength range using continuous-wave (CW) laser light. Here, we investigate a 1-km NANF designed for wavelengths up to the 2-μm waveband. Our results show a polarization extinction ratio between ~−30 dB and ~−70 dB across the 1520 to 1620 nm range in CW operation, peaking at ~−60 dB at the 2-μm design wavelength. Our study also includes the pulsed regime, providing insights beyond previous CW studies, e.g., on the propagation of broadband quantum states of light in NANF at 2 μm, and corresponding extinction-ratio-limited quantum bit error rates (QBER) for prepare-measure and entanglement-based quantum key distribution (QKD) protocols. Our findings highlight the potential of these fibers in emerging applications such as QKD, pointing towards a new standard in optical quantum technologies.
ORCID iDs
Afxenti, Ivi, Yu, Lijun, Shields, Taylor, Faccio, Daniele, Bradley, Thomas, Caspani, Lucia ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2711-0448, Clerici, Matteo and Dada, Adetunmise C.;-
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Item type: Article ID code: 90616 Dates: DateEvent23 September 2024Published10 September 2024Published Online20 August 2024Accepted6 May 2024SubmittedSubjects: Science > Physics > Optics. Light Department: Faculty of Science > Physics > Institute of Photonics Depositing user: Pure Administrator Date deposited: 20 Sep 2024 13:58 Last modified: 28 Sep 2024 00:50 Related URLs: URI: https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/id/eprint/90616