A trusted node–free eight-user metropolitan quantum communication network

Abstract

Quantum communication is rapidly gaining popularity due to its high security and technological maturity. However, most implementations are limited to just two communicating parties (users). Quantum communication networks aim to connect a multitude of users. Here, we present a fully connected quantum communication network on a city-wide scale without active switching or trusted nodes. We demonstrate simultaneous and secure connections between all 28 pairings of eight users. Our novel network topology is easily scalable to many users, allows traffic management features, and minimizes the infrastructure as well as the user hardware needed.

Metadata

Authors/Creators:

Joshi, SK
Aktas, D
Wengerowsky, S
Lončarić, M
Neumann, SP
Liu, B
Scheidl, T
Currás Lorenzo, G
Samec, Ž
Kling, L
Qiu, A
Razavi, M https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4172-2125
Stipčević, M
Rarity, JG
Ursin, R

Copyright © 2020 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CC BY). https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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