Nondestructive Photon Measurement and Storage for Long Distance Trapped Ion Quantum Networking

Trapped-ion-based quantum networks have demonstrated high fidelity entanglement combined with competitive two-node entanglement rates [1]. However, these networks have been limited to a few meters in distance, due to both heavy fiber attenuation of photons produced by ions, and relatively low single-photon collection efficiencies of trapped ion systems. I will discuss our newly proposed network architecture [2] for increasing entanglement rates between remote trapped-ion network nodes by integrating neutral-atom based nondestructive photon measurement [3] and storage [4,5]. I will show how this “hybrid” network can provide a 100-fold increase in the entanglement rate between two distant trapped Ba⁺ ions separated by up to 50 km. 

[1] Stephenson, L. J., et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 124.11  110501 (2020).

[2] Hannegan, John, et al. arXiv:2101.04236 (2021).

[3] K. Xia, M. Johnsson, et al. Phys. Rev. Lett.116, 023601 (2016).

[4] Siverns, James D. et al. , Sci. Adv 5, eaav4651 (2019)

[5] Wang, Y., Li, J., Zhang, S. et al. Nat. Photonics 13, 346–351 (2019).