Optical-Relayed Entanglement Distribution Using Drones as Mobile Nodes
Huaying Liu, Xiao-Hui Tian, Changsheng Gu, Pengfei Fan, Xin Ni, Ran Yang, Ji-Ning Zhang, Mingzhe Hu, Jian Wei Guo, Xun Cao, Xiaopeng Hu, Gang Zhao, Yanqing Lu, Yan-Xiao Gong, Zhenda Xie, Shining N. Zhu · Physical Review Letters · 2021
Entanglement distribution has been accomplished using a flying drone, and this mobile platform can be generalized for multiple mobile nodes with optical relay among them. Here we develop the first optical relay to reshape the wave front of photons for their low diffraction loss in free-space transmission. Using two drones, where one distributes the entangled photons and the other serves as relay node, we achieve entanglement distribution with Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt S parameter of 2.59±0.11 at 1 km distance. Key components for entangled source, tracking, and relay are developed with high performance and are lightweight, constructing a scalable airborne system for multinode connectio and toward mobile quantum networks.