Heralded entanglement of on-demand spin-wave solid-state quantum memories for multiplexed quantum network links

Abstract

The ability to distribute heralded entanglement between distant matter nodes is a primitive for the implementation of large-scale quantum networks. Some of the most crucial requirements for future applications include high heralding rates at telecom wavelengths, multiplexed operation and on-demand retrieval of stored excitations for synchronization of separate quantum links. Despite tremendous progress in various physical systems, the demonstration of telecom-heralded entanglement between quantum nodes featuring both multiplexed operation and on-demand retrieval remains elusive. In this work, we combine narrowband parametric photon-pair sources and solid-state quantum memories based on rare-earth doped crystals to demonstrate telecom heralded entanglement between spatially separated spin-wave quantum memories with fully adjustable recall time and temporal multiplexing of 15 modes. In a first experiment, the storage in the spin-state is conditioned on the entanglement heralding. We take advantage of the control over readout pulse phase to achieve feed-forward conditional phase-shifts on the stored photons depending on which heralding detector clicked. We exploit this effect to double the entanglement heralding rate for a given quantum state up to 510 cps, with an associated detection rate of 0.32 cps and measured positive concurrence by up to 6 standard deviations. In a second experiment, we simulate the communication time of a long-distance link by implementing an unconditional storage scheme with a dead-time of 100 $μ$s. We take advantage of temporal multiplexing to increase the entanglement rates by a factor of 15 with respect to single mode storage, reaching a value of 22 cps per heralding detector. These results establish our architecture as a prime candidate for the implementation of scalable high-rate quantum network links.