Memory-assisted long-distance phase-matching quantum key distribution

Abstract

We propose a scheme that generalizes the loss scaling properties of twin-field or phase-matching quantum key distribution (QKD) related to a channel of transmission $\eta_{total}$ from $\sqrt{\eta_{total}}$ to $\sqrt[2n]{\eta_{total}}$ by employing n-1 memory stations with spin qubits and n beam-splitter stations including optical detectors. Our scheme's resource states are similar to the coherent-state-based light-matter entangled states of a previous hybrid quantum repeater, but unlike the latter our scheme avoids the necessity of employing 2n-1 memory stations and writing the transmitted optical states into the matter memory qubits. The full scaling advantage of this memory-assisted phase-matching QKD (MA-PM QKD) is obtainable with threshold detectors in a scenario with only channel loss. We mainly focus on the obtainable secret-key rates per channel use for up to n=4 including memory dephasing and for n=2 (i.e., $\sqrt[4]{\eta_{total}}$-MA-PM QKD assisted by a single memory station) for error models including dark counts, memory dephasing and depolarization, and phase mismatch. By combining the twin-field concept of interfering phase-sensitive optical states with that of storing quantum states up to a cutoff memory time, distances well beyond 700 km with rates well above $\eta_{total}$ can be reached for realistic, high-quality quantum memories (up to 1s coherence time) and modest detector efficiencies. Similarly, the standard single-node quantum repeater, scaling as $\sqrt{\eta_{total}}$, can be beaten when approaching perfect detectors and exceeding spin coherence times of 5s; beating ideal twin-field QKD requires 1s. As for further experimental simplifications, our treatment includes the notion of weak nonlinearities for the light-matter states, a discussion on the possibility of using homodyne detectors, and a comparison between sequential and parallel entanglement distributions.