Olivier Alibart

Entanglement-based quantum links are intended to become the backbone of future quantum networks, enabling secure communication between distant cities. Implementing such networks requires addressing multiple practical challenges: time synchronization, interferometric system stabilization, dispersion, and loss management, as well as reliable automation. In this quest for practical QKD systems, we report the continuous exploitation of an operational link for more than 325 h over 50 km between two remote locations, demonstrating the feasibility of long-duration key generation. We further extend secure key distribution up to a 100 km operational link connecting several campuses of the University Côte d’Azur to an optical ground station, a setup compatible with future quantum satellite connections. Finally, by employing a dense wavelength-division demultiplexing strategy to separate paired photons, we enable QKD across multiple standard channels, achieving secure key exchange via the BBM92 protocol and time-energy observables in a multiple-user scenario.

A fully fibered source of entangled photon pairs based on a nonlinear Sagnac interferometer is reported. Operating at telecom wavelengths, the source relies exclusively on standard fiber-optic components and periodically poled lithium niobate waveguides, resulting in a compact, robust, and field-deployable architecture. The generation stage supports both polarization and energy-time entanglement without modification, enabling versatile operation depending on the targeted application. Broadband spontaneous parametric down-conversion allows dense wavelength-division multiplexing over the telecom C and L bands. A lumped device brightness of about 104 pairs s−1 nm−1 mW−2 is reported over several standard 100-GHz ITU channel pairs, together with high entanglement quality. Polarization and energy-time encodings are characterized through state tomography and two-photon interference measurements, yielding fidelities, purities, and visibilities exceeding 96% over multiple wavelength channels. The stability and reproducibility of the source are further evaluated through long-duration operation in a network environment. These results demonstrate that the proposed Sagnac source constitutes a practical and scalable building block for future plug-and-play quantum communication and quantum networking platforms.

A modification of the TLS protocol is presented, using our implementation of the Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) standard ETSI GS QKD 014 v1.1.1. We rely on the Rustls library for this. The TLS protocol is modified while maintaining backward compatibility on the client and server side. We thus wish to participate in the effort to generalize the use of QKD on the Internet. We used our protocol for a video conference call encrypted by QKD. Finally, we analyze the performance of our protocol, comparing the time needed to establish a handshake to that of TLS 1.3.

This paper presents MULTISS, a new protocol for long-term storage distributed across multiple Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) networks. This protocol is an extension of LINCOS, a secure storage protocol that uses Shamir secret sharing for secret storage on a single QKD network. Our protocol uses hierarchical secret sharing to distribute a secret across multiple QKD networks while ensuring perfect security. Our protocol further allows for sharing updates without having to reconstruct the entire secret. We also prove that MULTISS is strictly more secure than LINCOS, which remains vulnerable when its QKD network is compromised.

We present the implementation of a time synchronization protocol as a part of an experimentally deployed entanglement-based quantum key distribution (QKD) link. The system is deployed over 48 km of optical fibers across the Métropole Côte d'Azur and enables secret cryptographic key exchange between two remote users, with an average rate of 7 kbps. We exploit the time correlation of paired photons generated by a high-quality source of energy-time entanglement implemented in the QKD link to synchronize two rubidium clocks located at the end stations. The level of stability achieved guarantees a time offset between the clocks under 12 ps at all time. We also show that this protocol requires less hardware than a typical synchronization protocol for QKD that would distribute a reference clock signal between the users.

Les technologies quantiques s’aventurent aujourd’hui en dehors des laboratoires. Une équipe chinoise a même déjà distribué des clefs sur plusieurs milliers de km via un satellite. De telles annonces sensationnelles masquent cependant la partie immergée de l’iceberg : la seconde révolution quantique est constituée d’une multitude d’avancées scientifiques et technologiques très diverses, que nous souhaitons illustrer ici par la démonstration réalisée par l’équipe azuréenne : distribution quantique de clef sur 50 km basée sur l’intrication.

We report a monolithic integrated quantum photonic realization on lithium niobate, which enables producing various path-coded heralded two-photon states, showing 94% raw visibility for Hong-Ou-Mandel interference.

Progress in integrated photonics enables the combination of several elementary functions on single substrates for the realization of advanced functionalized chips. We report a monolithic integrated quantum photonic realization on lithium niobate, where nonlinear optics and electro-optics properties have been harnessed simultaneously for generating heralded configurable, two-photon states. Taking advantage of a picosecond pump laser and telecom components, we demonstrate the production of various path-coded heralded two-photon states, showing 94% raw visibility for Hong-Ou-Mandel interference. The versatility and performance of such a highly integrated photonic entanglement source enable exploring more complex quantum information processing protocols finding application in communication, metrology and processing tasks.

Path-entangled multi-photon states allow optical phase-sensing beyond the shot-noise limit, provided that an efficient parity measurement can be implemented. Realizing this experimentally is technologically demanding, as it requires coincident single-photon detection proportional to the number of photons involved, which represents a severe challenge for achieving a practical quantum advantage over classical methods. Here, we exploit advanced quantum state engineering based on superposing two photon-pair creation events to realize a new approach that bypasses this issue. In particular, optical phase shifts are probed with a two-photon quantum state whose information is subsequently effectively transferred to a single-photon state. Notably, without any multiphoton detection, we infer phase shifts by measuring the average intensity of the single-photon beam on a photodiode, in analogy to standard classical measurements. Importantly, our approach maintains the quantum advantage: twice as many interference fringes are observed for the same phase shift, corresponding to N = 2 path-entangled photons. Our results demonstrate that the advantages of quantum-enhanced phase sensing can be fully exploited in standard intensity measurements, paving the way toward resource-efficient and practical quantum optical metrology.

Photon statistical measurements on a semiconductor microlaser, obtained using single-photon counting techniques, show that a newly discovered spontaneous pulsed emission regime possesses superthermal statistical properties. The observed spike dynamics, typical of small-scale devices, is at the origin of an unexpected discordance between the probability density function and its representation in terms of the first moments, a discordance so far unnoticed in all devices. The impact of this new dynamics is potentially large, since coincidence techniques are presently the sole techniques capable of characterizing light emitted by nanolasers.