Owing to a reduced solar background and low propagation losses in the atmosphere, the 2- to 2.5-μm waveband is a promising candidate for daylight quantum communication. This spectral region also offers low losses and low dispersion in hollow-core fibers and in silicon waveguides. We demonstrate for the first time near-maximally entangled photon pairs at 2.1 μm that could support device independent quantum key distribution (DIQKD) assuming sufficiently high channel efficiencies. The state corresponds to a positive secure-key rate (0.254 bits/pair, with a quantum bit error rate of 3.8%) based on measurements in a laboratory setting with minimal channel loss and transmission distance. This is promising for the future implementation of DIQKD at 2.1 μm.
@article{arxiv.2106.10194,
title = {Near-maximal two-photon entanglement for quantum communications at 2.1 $\mu$m},
author = {Adetunmise C. Dada and Jędrzej Kaniewski and Corin Gawith and Martin Lavery and Robert H. Hadfield and Daniele Faccio and Matteo Clerici},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2106.10194},
year = {2022}
}