High-purity, high-rate, photon pair source for space-based entanglement distribution

The overall goal of this NASA effort is to develop and deliver efficient, single-pass quantum optical waveguide sources generating high purity polarization entangled photon pairs for use in high-rate long-distance links. The key innovation in this effort is the use of efficient, low-loss spontaneous parametric down conversion (SPDC) waveguides in combination with apodized gratings to tailor the optical nonlinear response to create quantum optical states with very high purity. In addition, the photon pair generation rate for these devices is very high, while payload size, weight, and power (SWaP) are tiny. They offer a key technology required for deployment of space-to-ground links and future construction of a global quantum network.

• high rate, space-based quantum communication • foundation for quantum-repeater based satellite quantum network • quantum metrology for precision space-based navigation • space-based entanglement tests of quantum and gravitational theories • characterization, optimization, and calibration of photon starved detectors • ghost imaging • quantum telescope

• ground-to-ground and space-to-ground fiber and free-space QKD • quantum metrology • quantum illumination • quantum-optics-based quantum computation • ground-based quantum networks using fiber-optic or free-space links

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