Work

Quantum networking with advances in fiber technology

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: Recent comparisons of quantum repeater protocols have highlighted the strong near-term potential of multiplexed two-way architectures for long-distance quantum communication. At the same time, advances in hollow-core fiber (HCF) technology motivate a reexamination of the physical transmission medium as an architectural lever in quantum network design. In this work we compare emerging antiresonant HCFs against conventional silica single-mode fibers (SMFs) in multiplexed two-way quantum repeater networks. We evaluate their performance under both telecom and memory-native transmission, accounting for frequency-conversion overheads, coupling efficiencies, memory decoherence, and operational noise. We find that HCF significantly outperforms SMF across a wide range of regimes. With memory-native transmission, HCF yields up to an order of magnitude improvement in secret-key rate per channel use under realistic conversion efficiencies. Even at telecom wavelengths, HCF enables larger optimal repeater spacing, improving rate-cost tradeoffs and reducing repeater requirements. We further quantify the role of memory quality, hardware efficiency, detector and conversion losses, and two-qubit gate noise in shaping these gains. These results show that recent advances in HCF materially expand the design space of practical terrestrial quantum repeater networks.

Source: Physical Review A

DOI: 10.1103/lf9y-3h7h

Authors: Prateek Mantri, Michael S. Bullock, Aditya Tripathi, Robert Kwolek, Rajveer Nehra, Don Towsley

Institution: University of Massachusetts Amherst

Language: English

Topic: Quantum Information and Cryptography

Subfield: Artificial Intelligence

Field: Computer Science

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $2,675

Funders: National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Energy, University of Massachusetts Amherst, European Research Council