QUANT-NET News

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have demonstrated a temporally multiplexed ion-photon interface by rapidly transporting a chain of nine calcium ions across 74 micrometers within 86 microseconds. This multiplexing approach is a key technique to increase the limited entangling rates of existing long-distance quantum networking approaches.

The work verifies the non-classical nature of the multiplexed photons with a second-order correlation function averaging 0.060(13), indicating negligible crosstalk between quantum channels, and finds coherent excitation of n_α≈ 110 after transport. This proof-of-principle implementation is expected to lead to a nearly nine-fold increase and enables large-scale quantum networking with trapped ions.

Read on Quantum Zeitgeist

What will the quantum internet look like — and what will it take to build it? In this conversation, ESnet Executive Director Inder Monga explains how ESnet's decades of experience building and operating the classical internet uniquely position the organization to help pioneer quantum networking. Monga discusses the QUANT-NET project, the DOE-funded collaboration he leads with experts at Berkeley Lab, UC Berkeley, Caltech, and the University of Innsbruck, which is tackling the fundamental engineering challenges of distributing quantum entanglement across real-world fiber networks. He explains how quantum networking differs from classical networking: it's not about moving large volumes of data, but about preserving fragile entangled states across distance before they lose coherence.

Monga also discusses the team's recent release of open-source control plane software designed to move quantum networking out of the manual, lab-bench stage and toward automated, software-driven operations. Looking ahead, he imagines a future where a quantum internet coexists with today's classical internet.  

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Kicking off the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology, this video explores the quantum research happening at Berkeley Lab, at the Quantum Systems Accelerator, the Advanced Quantum Testbed, and QUANT-NET. 

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