Highly-enhanced active beam-wander-correction for free-space quantum communications

Abstract

In practical applications to free-space quantum communications, the utilization of active beam coupling and stabilization techniques offers notable advantages, particularly when dealing with limited detecting areas or coupling into single-mode fibers(SMFs) to mitigate background noise. In this work, we introduce highly-enhanced active beam-wander-correction technique, specifically tailored to efficiently couple and stabilize beams into SMFs, particularly in scenarios where initial optical alignment with the SMF is misaligned. To achieve this objective, we implement a SMF auto-coupling algorithm and a decoupled stabilization method, effectively and reliably correcting beam wander caused by atmospheric turbulence effects. The performance of the proposed technique is thoroughly validated through quantitative measurements of the temporal variation in coupling efficiency(coincidence counts) of a laser beam(entangled photons). The results show significant improvements in both mean values and standard deviations of the coupling efficiency, even in the presence of 2.6 km atmospheric turbulence effects. When utilizing a laser source, the coupling efficiency demonstrates a remarkable mean value increase of over 50 %, accompanied by a substantial 4.4-fold improvement in the standard deviation. For the entangled photon source, a fine mean value increase of 14 % and an approximate 2-fold improvement in the standard deviation are observed. Furthermore,the proposed technique successfully restores the fidelity of the polarization-entangled state, which has been compromised by atmospheric effects in the free-space channel, to a level close to the fidelity measured directly from the source. Our work will be helpful in designing spatial light-fiber coupling system not only for free-space quantum communications but also for high-speed laser communications.